What a wonderful way to explore wind power! Through this lesson, learners get a background in the history of wind power, create their own wind turbine, and the test their designs. This is a terrific way to tie scientific principles to...

Students construct a model house or school. In this physics lesson plan, students research about who wind up clocks work and write an essay about it. They determine the center of gravity of different objects.

Sugar cubes, collide! Groups design protection systems using bubble wrap to protect sugar cubes from being destroyed by falling batteries in the STEM lesson. They consider how the experiment relates to collisions in real-world...

Students recognize how the climate of the Hudson Valley has changed since the last glaciation. They explain these changes using a reconstruction of the land use changes in the Hudson Valley composed of confetti, Ziploc bags and other...

Middle schoolers design, build, and test the specifications (water displacement and load line) for a model boat. The lesson plan focuses especially on integrating design principles with inquiry-based experimental skills.

Huygens spacecraft landed on Saturn's moon Titan in 2005, making it the farthest landing from Earth ever made by a spacecraft. In this hands-on activity, the 12th installment of 22, groups explore how density affects speed. To do this,...

It's a classification sensation! Demystify why we classify using an inquiry activity that helps your class sort things out. Groups begin by classifying a variety of shoes before they research organisms and design their own dichotomous...

How did the earth become the mass that it is now? Your young scientists explore this question through the concept of density. Their inquiries consider the impact of gravity on the formation of planets. The culminating activity of the...

Step into the role of a zoo director with several activities about animal training and running a zoo. Kids calculate the amount of food each animal needs, design a habitat for penguins, decide how to breed bottlenose dolphins, and train...

Students receive bloodstain pattern evidence from a crime scene. They answer a series of questions through inquiry, observation, measurement, and analysis. Pupils complete this challenge, by reconstructing the evidence through four...

Learners discuss Sol LeWitt and conceptual art, then analyze the differences in expressing a concept through model-based inquiry and aesthetic art criticism. They develop a geometric, scientific, or mathematical concept, then create an...

Students create a model of a comet. In this space science instructional activity, students compare their model to the characteristics of a real comet. They evaluate and make necessary modifications to their original design.

Students in this inquiry-based experiment, put in the role of a method development chemist. The scenario they are given is that a train wreck has occurred resulting in a chemical spill. Students are told that the spill mixture consists...

Young scientists learn that seeing isn't necessarily believing when it comes to the states of matter. After performing a fun class demonstration that models the difference between solids, liquids, and gases, children complete a series of...

Silver: more than jewelry, it's also a natural antimicrobial agent. An inquiry-based lesson asks collaborative groups to design and implement an experiment to test this property. Using samples of silver nanoparticles and a strain of...

An inventive and interesting lesson on the water cycle (and other cycles associated with it), is here for you. After doing a well-designed hands-on inquiry in class, learners also identify organisms and processes that are involved in the...

Part of a series of posters designed to be used with a unit fostering the skills needed to read like a historian, this template models the questions researchers need to ask to contextualize a primary source document.

Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to take your class on an underwater adventure. The final installment in a seven-part series involving salt and freshwater bodies takes junior oceanographers below the surface in...

Third graders will research the Ring of Fire and be able to share their findings with their partner. They will also demonstrate volcanic eruptions using a baking soda and vinegar volcano model. Then they will discover how continental...

Inquiry-based learning and investigations form the basis of a deep understanding of quadratic functions in a very thorough unit plan.  Learners develop recursive and closed methods for representing real-life situations,...

What questions do historians ask when sourcing a document? Here's a poster that models these questions.

Discover the connection between redox reactions and fuel cells. Collaborative groups build a Hoffmann Apparatus that demonstrates the electrolysis of water and then convert their models into a fuel cell. They use their fuel cells to...

Fifth graders design their own hot air balloon. In this science lesson plan, 5th graders investigate how factors like weight and sizes affect a balloon's lifting power. They also write math problems based on facts written in...

Students construct their own pendulum. In this physics activity, students design an experiment to find the factors affecting its period. They formulate a conclusion based on experimental data.