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"ART ZOO 'Blacks in the Westward Movement', 'What Can You Do with a Portrait', and 'Of Beetles, Worms, and Leaves of Grass'"
Students study black history, examine portraits and portrait making and create their own portraits, and investigate their natural environment. This humanities instructional activity provides a text that can be used to teach lessons in...
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How Size Shapes Animals
Students investigate how size affects large and small animals differently. In this animal lesson plan, students determine how size affects different animals by constructing their own animal out of marshmallows. Once students create...
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Fossils Footprints Across Time
Students examine fossils to understand how they are formed and how they give information about geological history. In this fossil activity, students research and write about fossils and make models of different fossil types.The PDF...
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Going...going...gone? Tropical Rainforests-How They Work, What They Do for Us, What's Being Done to Them...
Sixth graders explore the Tropical Rainforest and come to understand what it is and how it affects the ecosystem. In this rainforests instructional activity, 6th graders write about the Tropical Rainforest, imagine they are in the...
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An Uplifting Experience
Fifth graders conduct flight experiments. In this uplifting experience lesson, 5th graders build an airfoil and place in a variety of conditions to observe the results of lift and force in flight, as well as angle of attack. Students...
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Floodplain Modeling
Students simulate the impact of fluctuating river volumes on structures and landforms. They experiment with table top-sized riverbed models and water. Students consider how human design can help mitigate the effects of a flood.
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Let the Sun Shine!
Students investigate how the sun can be used for energy. They read a handout, discuss the pros and cons of passive solar building design, develop flashcard questions, and identify jobs that can be helped by solar energy.
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Newton Gets Me Moving
Students discuss Newton's laws of motion. The conduct motion experiments by building "Newton Rocket Cars" from assorted materials. They propel the cars with rubber bands and wooden blocks and record the distance traveled on data sheets.
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Powerful Pulleys
Students explore the building of a pyramid and how pulleys were used to change the direction of applied force. They demonstrate the mechanical advantage of using a pulley and apply it to modern engineering.
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Engineering - Solid Rock to Building Block
Young scholars role-play as engineers designing wedge tools. They devise methods for shaping quarry rocks into pyramid blocks. Following a teacher demonstration, they use materials such as soap, clay, and foam for blocks and wood,...
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Wheeling It In!
Students use everyday materials (milk cartons, water bottles, pencils, straws, candy) to build a small-scale transportation device that incorporates the wheel and axle and the lever. They race their carts/trucks, measure distance, time...
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Thar She Blows!: Wind Power
Students examine how wind energy is transformed into electrical energy. In pairs, they build miniature wind turbines and measure how much electrical current they produce. They asses the importance of design and position in energy...
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TE Lesson: Renewable Energy
Students examine renewable energy sources such as solar, water, and wind. They experiment to determine how renewable energy is transformed into electricity. They investigate the role of engineers who work in the field of renewable energy.
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Capturing the Sun's Warmth
Students explore the variety of ways to use solar energy. They investigate the thermal energy storage capacities of different test materials to determine which to use in passive solar building design. They explain how passive solar...
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Energetic Musical Instruments
Students apply the principles and concepts associated with energy and the transfer of energy in an engineering context through the designing and making of a musical instrument. After the accomplishment of the design, students must...
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Falling Water
Students drop water from different heights to demonstrate the conversion of water's potential energy to kinetic energy. They see how varying the height from which water is dropped affects the splash size. In seeing how falling water can...
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TE Activity: Hot or Not
Students examine how the human immune system responds to germs and explain what a fever is. They design a thermometer in order to further explore temperature before completing a temperature conversion worksheet. They detail the work of...
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Rockets on a Shoestring Budget
Students, operating under simulated budget constraints, build pop-rockets and launch them. Working in pairs, they complete budget worksheets and use their "Blast Off Bucks" to pay for the construction. They then redesign their rockets...
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Stations of Light
Student groups rotate through four stations to examine light energy behavior: refraction, magnification, prisms and polarization. They see how a beam of light is refracted (bent) through various transparent mediums. Students investigate...
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Walk, Run, Jump!
Students participate in a series of timed relay races using their skeletal muscles. They compare the movement of skeletal muscle and relate how engineers help astronauts exercise skeletal muscles in space. They list the three types of...
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TE Activity: Yogurt Cup Speakers
Sixth graders build a speaker as they investigate the roles of electricity and magnetism. They discover the properties of magnets, create an electromagnet, and determine the direction of a magnetic field. They show cause and effect...
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Sound
Young scholars identify sources and importance of sound, discuss sounds heard on way to school, explain why sound waves can be "seen", and participate in various classroom activities and experiments that illustrate how sound travels.
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Weather
Students explore the earth's atmosphere, weather, and climate. They begin class with a discussion about weather patterns, atmosphere, and the layers of the earth. After the class discussion, students rotate through four stations to...
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Investigating Electrical Circuits
Sixth graders draw and construct a complete circuit. In small groups they develop a list of questions about electricity, listen to a teacher-led lecture, construct a complete circuit, test circuits, and create an illustration of a...