Curated OER
Blubber Gloves
Fifth graders examine animal adaptations and how they meet their needs in a variety of environments. They discuss how they might adapt to their own environment before discussing how an animal could adapt. Next, they complete an...
Ohio State University
Exploration Activities with Electrostatic Interactions
Step out of the 21st century and discover protons and electrons through observation. Using common materials, participants continually adjust their explanation of charges. The final assessment requires pupils to design their own...
Curated OER
Charge It!
Students complete an experiment using balloons to help them examine the concept of static electricity. They discover how engineers use this information to create better air filters for homes. They describe how to charge an insulator as...
Curated OER
Maintaining Body Heat
Learners observe and compare heat loss in various objects with surface area-to-volume ratios and transfer this comparison to the physical characteristics of animals in their environment. In small groups they conduct an experiment...
Curated OER
Simple Circuit: Electric Currents and Circuits
Through inquiry and exploration, 4th graders will learn and understand the functions of open and closed circuits. They will break into 2 groups, define vocabulary, hypothesize how to light a bulb, then test their hypothesis 4 different...
Curated OER
Electrical Safety
A summary of electric charge and its flow along a conductor starts this PowerPoint. The differences between batteries and supply from a power station are detailed and a group of slides that ask questions of your students and then give...
Curated OER
Electricity and Electrical Circuits
Students are introduced to electricity and electrical circuits. In groups, they draw circuit diagrams, complete a KWL chart and discover the difference between open, closed and series circuits. They define new vocabulary and make...
Curated OER
Blubber Gloves
The ways that animals adapt to their environments is quite remarkable. In this life science lesson, fifth graders take a look at some of the ways that aquatic animals that live in Arctic or Antarctic waters survive. They perform an...
Curated OER
Static Electricity
In this electricity worksheet, students read about static and current electricity and then draw pictures of an electric cell and circuits. Students draw 3 pictures total.
Curated OER
Electricity
The presentation begins with a circuit building activity and two data tables for young scientists to copy and complete. Full of clever animations, it will definitely spark student interest! However, the information is incoherent. You may...
Curated OER
Energy in the Home
This PowerPoint covers the complete topic of using energy in the home. Facts are given about the requirements for energy, where energy comes from, costs of energy and costs of running appliances. There are a number of lists here that...
Curated OER
How Lightening Works
Annotated diagrams explain the distribution of charged particles in clouds that can lead to lightening bolts. This is a super short slide show but it is useful for explaining the phenomenon and safety mechanisms.
Curated OER
Heat and Matter
Students explore liquids and solids by conducting in class experiments. In this matter instructional activity, students define the properties of matter and how heat can change those properties. Students experiment with heating objects...
Curated OER
Science Lesson: Home-made Generator
High schoolers are able to design and conduct an experiment related to electrical generation. They are able to list the factors that affect the amount of current that can be generated by a simple generator, such as the number of turns...
Curated OER
Building an Electric Motor
Students study different motors and how they convert electrical energy to mechanical energy. In this motor lesson students make a model of an electric motor and examine how it can be used to do work.
Curated OER
Energy for Earth: The Sun
Super science learners examine the sun's production of energy by the process of nuclear fusion. Hands-on activities make this instructional activity engaging for middle schoolers. The instructional activity is made up of four parts. Part...
Curated OER
Make Your Own Temperature Scale
Differentiate between temperature and thermal energy. Your class will build a thermometer using simple materials and develop their own scale for measuring temperature. Discuss with your class and consider why engineers need to understand...
Curated OER
Cooking with the Sun
Students explore using energy from the sun for heating and cooking as they build and compare the performance of four solar cooker designs. This excellent two-day lesson has groups of students build and test a variety of solar cookers....
NASA
Foam Rocket
When going for distance, does it make a difference at what angle you launch the rocket? Teams of three launch foam rockets, varying the launch angle and determining how far they flew. After conducting the series of flights three times,...
Curated OER
Survival in Antarctica
Explore the harsh climate of Antarctica and its wildlife. Participate in experiments to determine how humans survive in the continent's climate, and address the difficulties faced by scientists.
It's About Time
Electromagnets
Young scientists build their own electromagnet and test it by picking up paperclips. Analysis questions evaluate knowledge at the end of the activity.
It's About Time
Detect and Induce Currents
Young scientists recreate an 1820 experiment and build off of it to investigate how to detect and induce electrical currents. As a final activity, scholars answer questions in multiple formats.
Curated OER
Life in the Crystal Palace
Marine biologists research sea ice communities. Assign some groups to construct paper models of sea ice communities in winter, and some to construct models of them in summer. The lesson is simplistic, but the Internet resources provided...
Curated OER
Capacitors: What Are They?
Young scholars discover how capacitors help store data. In this computer science lesson, students investigate how capacitors can store an electronic charge, eventually helping computers store data. Young scholars create their own...