Curated OER
Volcanoes: Fourth Grade Lesson Plans and Activities
Young geologists begin exploring volcanoes of different structures and states: active, extinct, or dormant. During the lab, they make three models and compare different types of volcanoes, including composite, cinder cone, and shield....
Curated OER
Earthquakes: Third Grade Lesson Plans and Activities
Introduce third graders to energy waves with a hands-on geology activity, in which they answer questions and compare seismograms in the San Francisco Bay area. After a demonstration that shows how bigger waves indicate a high-intensity...
Curated OER
Hazards: Fifth Grade Lesson Plans and Activities
After comparing earthquake and volcanic hazards to one another, fifth graders take a closer look at damage associated with a volcanic eruption. They then create a simulation of mudslides due to a volcanic eruption. Using different...
Curated OER
Hazards: Kindergarten Lesson Plans and Activities
The last unit in the series allows kindergarteners to see the dangers and hazards associated with each of the natural disasters learned so far in the series—earthquakes and volcanoes. They listen to sounds associated with the disasters.
Curated OER
Earthquakes: Kindergarten Lesson Plans and Activities
Beginning with a pre-lab, kindergarteners trace the letters in the word earthquake and discuss what happens in an earthquake. The lab portion allows young scientists realize that earthquakes trigger shaking of different intensities...
Curated OER
Changes in Nature
Fifth graders identify the chemical and physical changes in the water cycle, carbon cycle, and the effects of weathering. They analyze the periodic table, and observe how vinegar reacts with limestone in a chemical reaction that causes...
Curated OER
What Goes Around Comes Around
Students investigate how the ocean plays a part in the water cycle. In this earth science lesson, students locate a puddle outside and mark it with chalk. Students observe the changes in the water during the next two days.
Curated OER
Water Supply
Fourth graders complete three activities. In this water supply lesson, 4th graders learn that water can exist in different forms and watch a demonstration of each form. Students explore the water cycle and make a water cycle using the...
Curated OER
Sustainable Southern Belize: Coral Health Lesson Plan
Fifth graders investigate coral reefs and the dangers they face by labeling and drawing. In this oceanography lesson plan, 5th graders view a PowerPoint presentation of photographs of coral reefs in Belize. Students investigate and...
Curated OER
Weathering
Second graders explore weathering and how the water cycle plays a part in weathering. In this weathering lesson, 2nd graders put gravel and sugar cubes in a jar and shake, simulating weathering. Students use the scientific method to do...
Curated OER
Microbial Influence on Earth's Systems
Learners identify the different biogeochemical cycles on Earth. In this biology activity, students observe microbes under a microscope. They compare and contrast respiration and photosynthesis.
Curated OER
Let's Take a Rock Apart
Students take a crushed rock and sort the remains of the rock minerals into different categories based on the different properties. In this sorting lesson plan, students learn what makes up a rock and how to sort something into categories.
Curated OER
Food: Early American Food Cycles Web Quest
Students complete a Web Quest on ways that Native Americans hunted for, harvested, stored, and prepared food and what types of natural foods were eaten. In this early American food cycles lesson, students discover many of the ways early...
Curated OER
The Dragonflies of Summer
The best thing about dragonflies is that they make great topics for informational texts. Get those readers excited with a fun and interesting insect-related text passage that can help them increase their comprehension skills. As children...
DiscoverE
Build a Watershed
What's the best way to learn how watersheds work? Build one! Combining engineering, the water cycle, and ecology concerns, the activity is the perfect fit for an interdisciplinary unit. Teams construct a model watershed with simple...
Curated OER
Life Cycles
Students identify and explain the parts of a flower and their role in the life cycle of flowering plants. In this online plant biology lesson, students explore the processes of pollination, seed dispersal, and germination. Extension...
Annenberg Foundation
Geometry 3D Shapes: 3D Shapes
Explore vocabulary related to three-dimensional shapes. An instructional website describes the characteristics of different geometric solids. Learners can use an interactive component to view nets, faces, vertices, and edges of common...
Curated OER
Plate Tectonic Cycle
Students explore the Earth's movements by completing worksheets. In this plate tectonics lesson, students define such natural disasters as volcanoes, earthquakes, tsunamis and mudslides and discuss their connections to plate tectonics....
US Department of Energy
Solar Distiller
Explore the sun's ability to distill contaminated water with this simple set of classroom experiments. After filling two glass bowls, one with muddy water and the other with salt water, they are covered with plastic wrap and placed in...
National Energy Education Development Project
Exploring Hydropower
In 2006, about 20 percent of the world's electricity was generated from hydroelectric power. In the presentation, scholars review the water cycle and gravitational energy to begin to understand how humans harness the power of water. They...
National Park Service
Caves, Canyons, Cactus, and Critters
Mother Nature's Gravel Company is open for business! The unit includes four lessons covering weathering and erosion. Experiments are simple to complete and young geologists compare notes to see who makes the biggest ice wedge, moves...
Mathematics Vision Project
Module 6: Congruence, Construction, and Proof
Trace the links between a variety of math concepts in this far-reaching unit. Ideas that seem very different on the outset (like the distance formula and rigid transformations) come together in very natural and logical ways. This unit...
Columbus City Schools
The Mystery of Earth’s History
Every living creature can leave a fossil record, yet most fossils belong to extinct organisms rather than ones currently living. Scholars learn about dating rock layers, fossils, and the environment of the past. Pupils understand that...
PBS
Breaking it Down
After challenging themselves to correctly choose the form of erosion and length of time required for a given landform to develop, earth science class members model mechanical and chemical weathering with various lab demonstrations over...