Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Nuts & Bolts: is Classification, Arbitrary, Or Not?

For Teachers 6th - 8th
Students, in groups, classify furniture, share their categories and rationales, then note how their different schemes vary, perfectly logical and useful, but completely arbitrary.
Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Geometry and Symmetry

For Teachers 4th - 6th
Students examine tessellations and their geometric properties. The lesson plan and discussions may be used to develop students' understanding of polygons and symmetry as well as their ability to analyze patterns.
Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Squirrel Challenge

For Teachers 1st - 3rd
Students utilize The Nature Park Adventure educational software program to Introduce Modelling, Including the Estimation of Angles.
Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Who Am I and Who Are You?

For Teachers Pre-K - K
Students document their unique characteristics through photography. In this self-discovery lesson, students take photographs of themselves and others. As a class, they discuss similarities and differences, and sort, graph, and find...
Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Can the Radon Problem Be Fixed?

For Teachers 4th - 5th
Students devise the solutions to the radon problem. They consider how radon enters homes and the air flow patterns within them while focusing on the fact that the ultimate source of radon is the rocks and soils under the house. They...
Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Shapes at Work

For Teachers 3rd - 5th
Students use their classroom to look for various types of shapes. In their science journals, they record the shapes they find and identify those that can be used to solve problems or build structures. They share and post their sketches...
Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Collisions Lesson

For Teachers 10th
Tenth graders explore the role that collisions and near collisions of galaxies play in determining the shape of galaxies. They model the collision of disk shaped and spherically shaped galaxies.
Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Getting to the Core of Climate Change

For Teachers 6th - 9th
Students investigate climate changes by graphing and analyzing ice core data from Greenland and Antarctica. They create, explain and report the pattern of data on a graph of ice core data. In addition they find relationships between the...
Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Number Types: Where Vocabulary Meets Numbers

For Teachers 6th - 12th Standards
Rational, irrational, real, natural. All these words can refer to numbers. Who knew? Learners use the Visual Thesaurus and a semantic feature analysis grid to examine the different attributes of numbers. Step-by-step instructions for...
Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Who Am I Like?

For Teachers 2nd - 3rd
Students examine family structures. In this family structure lesson, students discover things about their own families and those of their classmates. They make a chart as they discuss nature versus nurture, complete a worksheet about who...
Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Migration Nation

For Teachers K - 2nd
Students study the concept of animal migration. They explore the migratory patterns of four different animals. Specifically, they search for on-line information about the natural history of animals and explore reasons why animals might...
Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Beautiful Butterfly Tiles

For Teachers 3rd
Third graders create a butterfly drawing that includes the elements of art and principles of design. They create artwork that can be made into ceramic tiles to be installed around the classroom doorways in our new addition.
Lesson Plan
Curated OER

When Clay speaks

For Teachers 3rd - 4th
Students listen as the teacher reads "When Clay Sings," by Byrd Taylor. They discuss clay, and view a variety of clay items. Students watch a video clip "Interests in One of a Kind Pots." They watch a demonstration on working with clay....
Lesson Plan
Curated OER

The Monarch Butterfly Watch

For Teachers 2nd - 12th
Young scholars explore monarch migration through the Journey North web site. In this butterfly lesson, students use the internet to identify a butterfly's migration pattern. Young scholars write in electronic journals.
Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Guetemala's Changing Forest

For Teachers 8th
Eighth graders compare their local ecological zone to the tropical rainforest. In this natural ecology lesson, 8th graders complete an activity about the differences in ecological zones. They compare their biome to the Guatemalan...
Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Hurricanes and Tornadoes (Grade 4-8)

For Teachers 4th - 8th
Students investigate the concepts of hurricanes and violent weather conditions. In this violent weather lesson, students access an Internet site and watch a video about how air masses behave, how a tornado forms, how hurricanes form, and...
Lesson Plan
Curated OER

How Trees Contribute to the Water Cycle

For Teachers 3rd
In this water cycle instructional activity, 3rd graders conduct an experiment where they observe and calculate how water transpires in different types of trees.  Students engage in a class discussion and use Venn Diagrams to compare...
Lesson Plan
Curated OER

We’ve Bean Growing: Anatomy of Germination

For Teachers 2nd - 6th
Students identify the main parts of a seed. In this biology lesson, students explain the factors needed for the seed to grow. They record observations everyday and report findings to class.
Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Dream! (Part One)

For Teachers K - 3rd
Students share with the class what they want to be when they grow up. As a class, they identify what they want to be for Halloween as well. They are videotaped stating their dream and photographed with their mask. Using the masks, they...
Lesson Plan
Teach Engineering

What Does Light See?

For Teachers 10th - 12th
The second installment of a seven-part series focuses on the refraction of light and how it affects the colors we see. Learners consider how this concept connects to biosensors for cancer detection.
Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Introducing Temperature Measurement

For Teachers K - 2nd
Students explore temperature and use Celcius thermometers to measure and graph the temperature in the classroom daily. They estimate what they think the temperature might be and then find the actual temperature in the room.
Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Fun With Sound

For Teachers 2nd
Second graders make predictions. In this sound lesson, 2nd graders listen to various sounds, and write down and draw what they think that sound is. Students make a chart of their predictions.
Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Michigan Virtual Field Trip

For Teachers 3rd - 5th
Students analyze data from a virtual field trip to Michigan. They conduct Internet research on mileage and travel time between cities, calculate and compare fuel costs, and research and calculate lodging, activities, and meal costs.
Lesson Plan
PBS

Toothpicks and Transformations

For Teachers 9th - 12th Standards
High schoolers investigate quadratic functions using geometric toothpick designs. They review transformations of quadratic functions-vertical and horizontal shifts, and stretches and shrinks. Students match the symbolic form of the...