Colorado State University
Do Cities Affect the Weather? (Making a Cloud in a Bottle)
The dynamics of a city can have a drastic effect on the weather. A hands-on lesson asks learners to build a model to illustrate how city pollution provides a nucleus for condensation. The greater the pollution, the greater chance for...
Curated OER
Melt Away
Students explore objects before and after heating using their senses. In this matter and energy lesson, students experiment with a variety of objects and use their senses (except taste) to make predictions and record observations...
Curated OER
Jackie Gore
Students identify the amount of heat given off by solar energy. In this solar energy lesson, students complete an experiment using soil and sand measuring the heat from solar energy.
Curated OER
The Webb Space Telescope: Detecting Dwarf Planets
In this detecting dwarf planets activity, students read about the Webb Space Telescope that will be launched in 2014 to detect dwarf planets using an infrared telescope. Students solve 3 problems and create a graph for each using given...
Curated OER
It's Just Right
Students conduct an experiment to determine the temperature tolerance of yeasts. In this biology lesson, students collect data and compare them by plotting graphs. They explain how extreme temperatures affect organisms.
Curated OER
Solar Water Heater Kit
In this earth science worksheet, students identify and experiment how hot water gets in a solar water heater. Then they respond to four short answer questions that follow related to the experiment.
Curated OER
Global Warming - The Heat is On: Global Climate Change Revisited
After listening to your lecture on climate change, young scientists access NOAA's database listing Mauna Loa's carbon dioxide data. They graph the monthly means and then compare their graphs to NOAA's. This is a concise plan that could...
Polar Trec
Staying Warm in Antarctica!
Has your class ever wondered how animals and scientists stay warm in the Polar Regions? Kids will investigate to understand the three types of heat transfer and how heat transfer affects those trying to stay toasty in sub-zero...
Teach Engineering
Capturing the Sun's Warmth
Passive solar heating is a technology that's been in use for thousands of years. Here, elementary schoolers are exposed to this type of heating, the materials that are used in passive solar heating, and they study how engineers design...
McAuliffe-Shepard Discovery Center
Global Warming in a Jar
This well-organized lab activity introduces earth science pupils to the greenhouse effect. They will set up two experiments to monitor temperatures in an open jar, a closed jar, and a closed jar containing water. Ideally, you would have...
American Association for the Advancement of Science
Sensing the Invisible: The Herschel Experiment
Learners of light will construct a contraption in which light is passed through a prism and shone into a box. The temperatures at different points along the path and outside of the path of light. The intent is to imitate William...
Curated OER
Global Warming Experiment
Students examine the changes in Earth's temperature. In this global warming lesson, students perform an experiment testing temperatures of soil. Students record their findings and discuss what made the differences in the soil temperature.
Curated OER
What Causes the Seasons?
Students conduct experiment to examine how tilt of globe influences warming caused by lighted bulb. They monitor simulated warming of their city by sun in winter and in summer by using light bulb, interpret results, and submit lab report.
Curated OER
Winter Insulation
Students test insulation materials. In this energy conservation lesson, students use different insulation materials to see which one holds heat the best. Students pour hot water into bottles, take the temperature, wait 15 minutes, then...
Curated OER
A Day at the Beach
Help learners determine the rate of change for the temperature of sand. They will collect data on the temperature of wet and dry sand over time with a heat lamp overhead. Then make a scatter plot of the data and find a linear model to...
Teach Engineering
How Hot is Hot?
Elementary schoolers identify the three methods of heat transfer: conduction, convection, and radiation. The lesson is mostly lecture-based. When the teacher has finished the presentation, groups of pupils get into teams and they must...
Curated OER
Bing! Bang! Boom!
Sixth graders investigate heat energy, conduction, convection, and radiation.
National Institute of Open Schooling
Spontaneity of Chemical Reactions
Do spontaneous reactions really occur? Activity 12 in a series of 36 focuses on spontaneity of chemical reactions. Learners read about, discuss, and answer questions pertaining to entropy, explain the third law of thermodynamics, explore...
Colorado State University
Can Boiling Make Something Freeze?
Use boiling as an avenue for freezing. Young scholars watch as liquid nitrogen removes heat from the ingredients for ice cream. As this happens, the nitrogen boils and the ice cream freezes—all in the same container. A little science magic!
Curated OER
What Is the Freezing Point?
Young scholars remove heat energy and determine how it causes a phase change.
Curated OER
Exploring the Interstellar Medium
Students investigate the Interstellar Medium and the Local Bubble that the Sun is inside. They read and discuss a handout, answer discussion questions, observe a demonstration of light scattering, and conduct an experiment on the...
Curated OER
Global Warming: Life in a Greenhouse
High schoolers examine the evidence that scientists have used to support the existence of global warming and the greenhouse effect. How the concepts have been developed and evaluated form the focus of this lesson.
Curated OER
TE Activity: Hot Cans and Cold Cans
Middle schoolers work on problems in which they investigate conduction, convection, and radiation. They attempt to maintain the warmth in one can of soda while cooling the other as much as possible in a thirty minute period. They examine...
Curated OER
What is the Best Insulator: Air, Styrofoam, Foil, or Cotton?
Students investigate the properties of insulators by attempting to keep a cup of water from freezing, and once it is frozen, to keep it from melting. They conduct the experiment, record and analyze the results, and answer discussion...