When the sun's rays can't reach the producers in a food web, where does all the energy come from? Extreme environments call for extreme food sources. Young scientists investigate creatures that appear to get their energy from methane...

With a couple of neat diagrams on student handouts, your life science or health class will examine the contents and serving sizes of healthy foods. They dissect a slice of pizza and scrutinize the nutritional value of its components in...

Native American studies is fun, educational, and highly motivating. Fifth graders will gain a deeper understanding of the six major pre-Columbian culture areas on the North American continent. They will choose one group and conduct...

Get things cooking with the first instructional activity in this series on the science of food. Working in small groups, young scientists make and record observations about different mystery foods. These descriptions are then shared with...

Help your class make sense of nutrition labels with the ninth lesson of this series. After explaining the different information provided on packaged food labels, perform an activity that demonstrates the amount of sugar in a single can...

An excellent resource gets kids looking at agricultural production to better understand the careers needed in distributing foods from the farm to the consumer. Book, poster, web, and video links are included for teacher use. There is...

Students work together to examine the tastiest towns in the United States. After discovering the names of the equipment, they identify the seven continents. They take a survey and locate the cities and states of the foods mentioned.

Explore various ecosystems from around the world as your class discovers the interdependence of all living things. Using the provided sets of ecosystem cards, young scientists work in small groups building food webs to demonstrate the...

Students explore food supply distribution. In this GNP distribution lesson, students participate in a simulation that requires them to eat foods from the American continents. Students are served according to their chance positions in...

Sixth graders complete a five-week unit investigating the eight major biomes of South America. They conduct Internet research, collect short-term and long-term climate data, and create a HyperStudio slideshow stack about a selected biome...

Immediately capture the attention of your class with the smell of freshly popped popcorn in the sixth lesson of this series on the needs of living things. Young scientists first use their senses to make and record observations of...

The California missions were built with the hope of converting the local Native Americans to Catholicism, but exactly how different were their beliefs to begin with? Through analysis of a series of primary source documents,...

Young scholars participate in a series of activities to explore the types of food Americans eat, how food choices differ in various parts of the country, and how the availability of various foods has changed over time.

Class members use the Internet to research the history of Thanksgiving in the United States and Canada, as well as the traditions surrounding the Thanksgiving-style celebrations of the Hebrews, the Chinese, and in Ancient Greece and Rome.

Assess your pupils' ability to identify healthy food choices in the final activity of this series on food science. Given five different food labels, young nutritionists will rank them from most to least healthy, supporting their choices...

As the saying goes, you are what you eat. A useful set of lesson plans encourage young readers to take a second look at their eating habits. Pre- and post-reading questions bring in reflective writing and discussion while extension...

Elementary ecologists pretend to be migratory hummingbirds. They fly between wintering and nesting grounds, trying to reach a habitat haven. In a musical-chair fashion, some birds will miss out, and are removed from the game. To further...

How do you read a nutritional label? Help high schoolers practice reading nutritional labels on foods so they can calculate the calories in different types of foods. They will also examine the effects of fat on the body and the link to...

How are the reactions between American and European consumers different when it comes to genetically modified foods? Use the New York Times article "Consumers in Europe Resist Gene-Altered Foods" to inform your middle schoolers...

Study the nutrition of elderly people and how it helps them to remain independent and healthy.  Learners investigative the nutrition concerns of the elderly. MyPlate, vitamine requirements and sensory changes in the elderly are...

Though Upton Sinclair's novel The Jungle shocked the American public into a thorough examination of the meat-packing industry, the author was disappointed that his book's main argument—the exploitation of American immigrants—was not...

Celebrate the whimsical world of Dr. Seuss with a lesson that features the memorable tale of The Lorax. After listening to a riveting read-aloud, scholars take part in a grand conversation about the story and environment. Then...

Through this series of terrific lesson plans, pupils learn about the extent of poverty in the state of Arkansas during the Great Depression. They read documents from the period which describe how hard times were, view an online photo...

Trace pollutants through the environment in the seventh lesson of this series on the science of food. Looking at a picture of the plants and animals in an aquatic ecosystem, learners use dot stickers to represent harmful chemicals as...