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Bottle Rocket Launcher
Students construct a bottle rocket launcher for use with the Bottle Rocket and Project X-35 activities. They construct a bottle launcher from "off-the-shelf" hardware and wood using simple tools.
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Creating Craters
Young scholars explore parts of an impact crater and compare and contrast craters found in Earth, the Moon, and Mars. Crater formation is modelled and the relationship of mass, velocity, and size of the projectile to the crater formation...
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The Effects of Meteor Impacts
Students investigate meteor impacts on the Earth's surface by using different size balls and charting their impacts, given their diameter and mass.
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Learning about Fossils
Students explain the difficulty that paleontologists have in assembling fossil bones. Hard cookies are used to simulate dinosaur bones/fossils. They research the Apatosaurus and discuss paleontology.
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Indirectly Direct
Student form and test hyptheses using indirect and direct observation. They launch marbles to determine the shape of a hidden object.
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Rocket Science 101
Students explore the aspects of Newton's First and Third Laws of Motion as they conduct controlled rocketry experiments and analyze the Mars Mission in terms of the principles of rocketry.
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Rocket Transportation
Students use problem solving skills to lift a load using a balloon rocket. They construct a rocket out of a balloon and use it to carry a paper clip payload.
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Project X-35
Students demonstrate rocketry principles through a cooperative, problem solving simulation. They work in teams to simulate the development of a commercial proposal to design, build, and launch a rocket.
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Tag, You're Sick
Students play a game to model how the immune system works. In this health and wellness lesson, the teacher explains how the immune system works, then students play a game of tag trying to stay away from germs, viruses, and bacteria and...
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Planets in a Bottle
Students experiment with yeast. In this environmental conditions instructional activity students test the viability of samples of yeast. Students investigate the effects of environmental conditions on the yeast.
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Make a Comet Model and Eat It!
Students construct a comet model based on procedure provided. In this space science lesson, students compare the physical properties of comets to the models they made. They record their observations and share them with the class.
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Areology-The Study of Mars
Students examine core samples from Mars and discover what they can use it to tell the history of Mars. In this core sample instructional activity students create and analyze their own core samples then eat them at the end.
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Regolith Formation
Students study what regolith is and how it contrasts with weathering on Earth. In this weathering instructional activity students divide into groups, hypothesize and confirm their guesses.
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DEW POINT
Fourth graders investigate conditions causing saturation and measure the dew point of the atmosphere performing simple experiments.
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Changes Inside Planets
Students relate meteorites to the mantle and crust of asteroids. In this planetary lesson students complete experiments to model the separation of light.
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Making a Comet in the Classroom
Learners study comets and how Halley's comet was created. In this space lesson students create their own comets using dry ice.
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A Bird's Eye View Of Your Community
Students locate and identify their community by using a satellite image from the Internet. Students locate and identify common land structures within their community. You may want to include structures such as roads/streets, houses and...
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Blame It On El Nino
Young scholars understand what the weather phenomenon El Nino is and what causes it. Students recognize how remote sensing technology can detect and predict El Nino. Young scholars discover how El Nino effects weather conditions...
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MASS
Students distinguish between weight and mass. They examine how in oscillations of a mass against an elastic spring--in the absence of gravity, or in horizontal motion--the length of the oscillation period is proportional to the square...
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NEWTON'S 3RD LAW
Young scholars examine the formal definition of Newton's 3rd law: "forces always originate in pairs, equal in magnitude and opposite in direction." --The informal, qualitative version: "Each action has an equal and opposite reaction."
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MOTION IN A CIRCLE
Students explore uniform circular motion, and the relation of its frequency of N revolutions/sec with the peripheral velocity v and with the rotation period T, and the "centripetal acceleration" of an object.
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FRAMES OF REFERENCE: THE BASICS
High schoolers examine the concept of frames of reference in physics: that two frames of reference, each moving with respect to the other with a constant velocity v, observe the same accelerations and therefore Newton's laws are the same...
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WAVES AND PHOTONS
Learners examine the many types of electromagnetic waves, the concept of an EM wave, how James Clerk Maxwell proposed a slight modification of the equations of electricity, Heinrich Hertz and his radio-frequency, wavelengths, and light...
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Creating Station Models
Young scholars review weather conditions at various cities and create station models on a weather map.