Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Water Layering and Circulation

For Teachers 5th - 7th
Students examine relationships and interactions between different types of water. They experiment with colored water of different temperature and salinity and discuss how the results relate to real ocean currents.
Lesson Plan
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Climate Change: Is there a Controversy

For Teachers 6th - 8th
Students explore climate changes. In this climate changes instructional activity, students research what causes changes. Students search the Internet, summarize reports they find and create a poster with the information.
Lesson Plan
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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
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Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs

For Teachers 4th
Fourth graders participate in an activity which introduces them to common types of precipitation. They examine "Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs" through a teacher read aloud and make a weather pamphlet.
Lesson Plan
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Impact Craters: Holes in the Ground!

For Teachers 6th - 8th
Students simulate crater formation through a lab activity. In this space science instructional activity, students calculate how much energy is transferred during meteorite impact. They identify different factors affecting the size and...
Lesson Plan
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Comparison Activities

For Teachers 5th - 11th
Young scholars explore the size of the sun and it's temperature. Using the Internet, students visit given websites to compare the sun's diameter, outer layers, and mass to visual items young scholars can relate to. They also compare...
Worksheet
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The Tallest Plants ... are Trees!

For Students 3rd - 5th
A fabulous worksheet about trees awaits your students. They read a lengthy selection on the various parts of trees, then complete 13 fill-in-the-blank and matching questions about what they have read. An excellent reading comprehension...
Worksheet
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Global Meltdown

For Students 6th - 10th
For this environmental science lesson, students study data and animation on global temperature increase to complete 8 short answer questions that follow.
Lesson Plan
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The Magic School Bus Out of This World

For Teachers K - 2nd
Students learn along with Ms. Frizzle's class. In this Magic School Bus lesson plan, students explore craters that objects of different sizes and weights (marbles, Ping-Pong balls, and aluminum foil balls) create.
Lesson Plan
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The Spectrum of a Star

For Teachers 10th
Tenth graders identify stars based on their line spectra. In this astronomy activity, 10th graders analyze spectrograph and determine the elements present in the star. They explain the relationship between temperature and star classes.
Lesson Plan
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Digging into the Past

For Teachers 3rd - 5th
Students discover how fossils are found and how they help scientists reconstruct the past. They examine how they shed light on what kinds of animals and plants lived over the years, when they lived, and under what environmental conditions.
Lesson Plan
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Forest Canopies: View from the Top

For Teachers 9th - Higher Ed
Learners examine the economic and ecological benefits of forest canopies. They read and discuss an article, answer questions, conduct research, draw field sketches of a canopy ecosystem, conduct a feasibility study, or prepare tourist...
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Air Pollution: What is the Solution?

For Teachers 8th - 10th
For this air pollution worksheet, learners use an online simulation called "Smog City" to manipulate different conditions that affect air pollution. Students answer questions about the health effects at peak ozone levels for different...
Lesson Plan
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MAPPING THE TOPOGRAPHY OF UNKNOWN SURFACES

For Teachers 7th - 10th
Students describe in words and graphic displays the elevation or depression profile of sections of Mars' Olympus Mons and/or Valles Marineris. They explain how orbiting spacecraft build up global maps one data slice at a time.
Worksheet
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Mining the Web

For Students 6th - 9th
For this rock and mineral worksheet, students visit http://sciencespot.net and explore a variety of sites about rocks and minerals in order to complete questions about geology, the rock cycle, and rock creations.
Lesson Plan
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Rock Layers

For Teachers 6th - 10th
Students interpret a rock core sample from a clay model. In small groups, they layer modeling clay in a plastic container using coarse-grained spices sprinkled in to represent fossils. They switch containers with another group and remove...
Lesson Plan
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My Friend, The Volcano

For Teachers 5th - 6th
Students describe the positive impacts of volcanic activity on marine ecosystems. In this volcano lesson students explore the process that causes volcanic activity along the Mariana and Kermadec Island Arcs.
Lesson Plan
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The Rain Maker

For Teachers 2nd
Second graders work in small groups with a cup each of several materials. Students layer the gravel, sand, and water into a resealable bag. They draw a picture of this bag in their water journal. Students place their sealed bags in a...
Worksheet
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Earth and Matter

For Students 9th - 12th
In this matter worksheet, high schoolers review the Earth's layers, write balanced equations, and compare the properties of different elements. This worksheet has 29 fill in the blank questions.
Lesson Plan
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Physical Characteristics of the Troposphere

For Teachers 8th - 10th
Students lexplore environmental trends in the troposphere- temperature, dew point, pressure and wind speed- by checking their hypotheses against data collected by weather balloons.
Lesson Plan
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Exploring How Rocks Are Formed

For Teachers 3rd - 4th
These lessons produced by the Illinois State Museum are quite good. In this one, third and fourth graders are introduced to the three basic types of rocks: igneous, sedimentary, and metamorphic. They perform activities which help them...
Lesson Plan
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Metamorphic Rock Lab

For Teachers 7th - 10th
In this metamorphic rock worksheet, students observe 9 metamorphic rock samples and indicate the grain size, if there are bands, if there are layers , if it is foliated and they identify the name of the rock. They complete 5 sentences...
Worksheet
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Biotic and Abiotic Factors

For Students 9th - 10th
In this biotic and abiotic factors worksheet, students complete 20 various types of questions related to biotic and abiotic factors. First, they write the vocabulary word that best completes the sentence. Then, students state an example...
Lesson Plan
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Earth Science

For Teachers 9th - 12th
Young scholars analyze the mechanisms for generating ocean currents, temperature, and deep ocean circulation. They are able to assess the formation and breaking of waves and their effect on shorelines, particularly the North Carolina...