Curated OER
Rocks and Soil
Middle schoolers explore the physical properties of rocks. They explore the three different types of rocks and are able to compare and contrast their different properties. Students simulate the creation of sedimentary rock, they also...
Curated OER
Slugs and Snails
Slugs and snails are the focus of this life science learning exercise. Student read a selection on these animals, then answer ten comprehension questions. Then, students must draw an "alien portrait" using the characteristics of slugs...
Curated OER
Hot and Cold Colors
Students engage in an activity that will allow them to observe that hotter conditions can speed up changes in materials. They will predict whether food coloring disperses more quickly in hot, cold, or room temperature water, and then...
Curated OER
Water Magicians
First graders observe water changing states from a solid to a liquid to a gas. They predict what they think happen to ice cubes as they sit out. They paint water with paintbrushes outside the classroom in the sun and watch the water...
Curated OER
Up, Up, and Away
Second graders observe the changes that water has when there is a change in a state of matter. In this instructional activity they observe the results of applying heat to water with the end result of conversion to a gas.
Curated OER
The Water Cycle
In this worksheet on the water cycle, students read a short passage about the water cycle, located beneath a graphic organizer showing the cycle in pictures with labels.
American Museum of Natural History
Rubber Blubber Gloves
Using gloves, shortening, tape, and a lot of ice, participants experience the feeling of having blubber. The experiment's eight steps follow an informative page about blubber and animals that have it.
Chymist
Determination of the Volume of CO2 in Pop Rocks
Where does the pop in pop rocks come from? An engaging activity asks scholars to measure the amount of carbon dioxide in a package of Pop Rocks candy. Learners dissolve the candy in water and use the solubility of CO2 to determine its mass.
Cornell University
Atomic Bonding
Explore the connection of surface area to bonding within atoms. Learners complete lab investigations to model changing surface area with different sizes and concentrations of atoms. A flour fireball demonstration follows the labs to...
Curated OER
Rocks: Mineral Mixtures
A 22-slide set provides pretty much everything you need to teach the rock cycle except the actual specimens. All of the slides contain graphics or photographs to help describe the process, and most even have links to educational videos....
Colorado State University
What Makes a Gas, a Greenhouse Gas?—The Carbon Dioxide Dance
Investigate a heated topic in environmental science. Scholars team up to play the parts of gas molecules in the atmosphere. As the teacher moves about, acting as the electromagnetic wave, learners react as their molecules would to the...
Space Awareness
Meet Our Neighbors: Sun
The sun isn't just a ball of yellow! Young scientists learn about the features of the sun using a hands-on modeling activity. They build models of the sun using common household items to represent sunspots, solar prominence, and the...
Utah Education Network (UEN)
Recipe Terminology Hunt
As your young learners develop into cooking enthusiasts, ensure their success in creating their next culinary masterpiece by preparing them to read and understand basic recipe terminology.
American Museum of Natural History
Cosmic Cookies
Scholars read about each planet then bake a plate of cosmic cookies—no-bake cookies decorated to look like the planets; Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto.
Teach Engineering
Service-Based Engineering Design Project
Do some good for the community while learning about engineering. Groups complete a service-based engineering design project over the course of five weeks. The resource provides guidance on how to conduct the project and help pupils get...
Curated OER
Solar Kit Lesson #7 - Positioning Solar Panels I: Explorations with Tracking
In this first part of a two-part lesson, learners track and record the sun's azimuth using a solar panel. They graph and analyze the data to identify relationships among the time of day, the altitude and azimuth of the sun, and the...
Curated OER
Ice Ain't Easy
Young scholars are told that objects in contact with one another reach an equilibrium temperature. A hot object placed in a cool liquid always cool off. It never happens that the object gets hotter and cool liquid gets colder. Students...
Curated OER
The Science of Weather: Humidity makes air feel even hotter.
Young scholars examine the effects of heat and humidity. In this weather instructional activity, students read a chart to determine the effects heat and humidity can have on the human body. This instructional activity includes an...
Curated OER
Atmospheric Processes - Radiation
Students investigate how different surfaces absorb heat, and how the physical characteristics of a surface have a powerful effect on the way a surface absorbs and releases heat from the sun.
Curated OER
Earth Energy Budget Pre Lab
Students explore energy by conducting an in class experiment. In this climate change lesson plan, students conduct a water vapor experiment in a soda bottle. Students utilize graphs and charts to analyze the results of the experiment and...
Curated OER
Cool Times with Heat
Learners work with thermometers to complete problems about temperature. They investigate cooling patterns, how location affects temperature, and what happens when water having different temperature is mixed. They measure temperature in...
Curated OER
Ice Energy
Young scholars explore how chemicals change water. In this chemical change lesson, students participate in an experiment to observe how salt effects ice and how ice cream freezes.
Curated OER
Thermal Energy and Heat Unit
Learners explain that heat energy in a material consists of the disordered motions of its atoms or molecules. They know and explain that transformations of energy usually transform some energy into the form of heat, which dissipates by...
Curated OER
Clouds
In this science worksheet, students look for the meaning of the water cycle and its relation to the formation of clouds. They read the information about the different types of clouds.