Flotsam by David Wiesner and The Magic School Bus on the Ocean Floor by Joanna Cole, illustrated by Bruce Degen, begin a reading adventure pack focusing on oceans. With story listening and thoughtful discussion, scholars complete several...

Scholars warm-up their map skills with a discussion using location words to describe familiar places. An engaging video informs class members about latitude and longitude. Three leveled activities extend the learning experience for...

Who doesn't enjoy an engaging scavenger hunt? Here, scholars listen to, and discuss, the informative text, Where is my Continent? by Robin Nelson. They then explore the seven continents and four major oceans using...

Free Trade and Sailor's Rights! Pupils dive into America's first declared war, the War of 1812. They analyze the presidencies of Jefferson and Madison through diary entries and historical reasoning. To conclude the lesson, they use their...

Investigate the different types of pollution that storm drain runoff carries into oceans, lakes, rivers, and streams with this class demonstration. Using an aquarium and an assortment of everyday items that contaminants like motor oil,...

After brainstorming what they know about ocean acidification, youngsters place eggs in acid to determine the effects on calcium-containing organisms, and add carbon dioxide to solutions with sea shell material to discover the impact on...

Where in the world is the equator? Explore a world map with your class, coloring in oceans, continents, and rainforests while locating the three major lines of latitude: the equator, Tropic of Cancer, and Tropic of Capricorn. Discuss how...

Using different types of water, earth science explorers set out to prove the ocean's ability to absorb greenhouse gases. They heat, shake, and freeze the water samples to examine the gas content. This lesson is useful in a unit on...

It may be tricky for a young mind to conceptualize that less than 1% of all water on earth is useable for humans to drink. Simulating the amount of fresh water available on earth by removing measured amounts of water from a five-gallon...

Bioluminescent animals are the focus of a hands-on craft in which scholars create a scene of either a land or sea bioluminescent creature.

"We've got the whole world in our hands," is what your students will be singing after completing this fun geography activity. Using the included templates for the seven continents and a balloon, they create their very own globes.

To get the word out that the Great Pacific garbage patch (GPGP) contains millions of pounds of non-biodegrading plastics, individuals research the GPGP and write an article for a newsletter. Researchers present their facts in a...

Students explore biology by creating a report for the class. In this oceanography lesson, students research and identify the survival characteristics of a list of freshwater animals by utilizing the Internet and library. Students...

To conclude their examination of forest ecosystems, class members consider the role forests play in the carbon cycle and how forests can offset climate change.

What is the meaning of sea level? This resource helps your class understand the meaning of elevations above, below, and at sea level. Provides for good discussion on using positive and negative numbers to represent quantities in the real...

This science assignment produced by NASA teaches inquiring minds the distribution of Earth's water. Learners will appreciate and understand the importance of fresh water and how weather and climate affects everything.

How are maps like fish? They both have scales. The chapter includes six different activities at three different levels. Scholars complete activities using natural resources, learn how to read a map, see how to make a compass rosette,...

Class members are transformed into explorers as they work in groups to locate hidden items and map their journey along the way. They then leave clues for other groups of students to follow, and ultimately discover how past explorations...

What is the difference between a Cold War and a Hot War? Scholars research the beginning of the Cold War. They analyze diary entries as well as excerpts from various events during the 45-year standoff. To finish, they prepare final...

Using the natural pH indicator of red cabbage juice, groups determine the pH of different everyday liquids. As they work, pupils gain an understanding of pH that may help deal with contaminants in the water supply. 

This site includes questions related to reading and understanding graphs. There are links on this site to lesson plans, benchmarks, and other webpages all of which mostly center about probability and statistics.

Dive into a greater understanding of the oceans by tagging along on this exploration of the oceans.

The Discovery Channel provides numerous topics that are the most popular science topics taught in upper elementary and middle school. Content is organized by topics (Bacteria, Oceans, Solar System, etc.); all topics include quick facts,...