Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Engineering - Solid Rock to Building Block

For Teachers 3rd - 5th
Students 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, plastic,...
Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Pyramid Building: How to Use a Wedge

For Teachers 3rd - 5th
Learners explore the simple machine of a wedge. For this wedge lesson, students test wedges on different materials including wax, soap, clay and foam. They learn how a wedge was used to build the ancient pyramid and modern day skyscrapers.
Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Design a Colonial Garden

For Teachers 3rd - 5th
Students explore botany by completing an art design activity in class. In this gardening history lesson, students identify the plants and crops utilized in the Colonial era for both food and medicine. Students utilize geometry to create...
Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Simple Machines

For Teachers 3rd - 6th
Students create a pyramid design based on the 6 simple machines that they are introduced to. In this simple machines lesson plan, students are introduced to the wedge, wheel and axle, inclined plane, screw, and pulley.
Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Principles of Flight: Flying Paper Airplanes

For Teachers 4th - 5th
Students investigate ways to enhance an object's flying ability.  In this model construction lesson, students construct two paper airplanes, one of which is twice as big as the first.  Students compare and contrast the two...
Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Slope, Vectors, and Wind Pressure

For Teachers 9th - 11th
A hands-on lesson using the TI-CBR Motion Detector to provide information to graph and analyze. The class uses this information to calculate the slope of motion graphs and differentiate scalar and vector quantities. There is a real-world...
Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Symmetry in Paper Airplanes

For Teachers 5th - 8th
Young scholars explore symmetry.  In this geometry and scientific inquiry lesson, students design paper airplanes with middle line symmetry, as well as right, obtuse, and acute angles.  Young scholars measure the plane's angles...
Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Watch It Slide!

For Teachers 3rd - 5th
Students work together to examine inclined planes. They create a plan to raise rocks to build pyramids. They discover the changes that occur when the angle is increased or decreased.
Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Ecology - Biodiversity Lab

For Teachers 9th
Studnents examine the degree of biodiversity that exists in one's everyday environment, in order to develop an understanding of how scientists classify organisms and to explain why biodiversity is important for living things.