National Park Service
Fire Ecology on the Rim
An engaging unit on wildfires includes three sections, including a background section with eight lessons and five activities, a field experience section with 13 lessons and five activities, and a conclusion section featuring an...
Royal Society of Chemistry
Equilibria—Gifted and Talented Chemistry
Teaching is a balancing act! Keep things on an even keel with a comprehensive equilibrium lesson plan. The resource covers reversible and irreversible reactions, Le Chatelier's Principle, and the industrial applications of equilibrium...
Purdue University
Simple Machines – Dog Gone It!
How can people use simple machines to solve real-world STEM problems? Learn about simple machines using a hands-on, project-based learning activity. First, pupils investigate and evaluate simple machines. Then, they receive a task that...
Science 4 Inquiry
The Classification of Living Things
It's a classification sensation! Demystify why we classify using an inquiry activity that helps your class sort things out. Groups begin by classifying a variety of shoes before they research organisms and design their own dichotomous...
American Institute of Architects
Architecture: It's Elementary!—First Grade
Build an interest and appreciation for architecture in your young learners with this fun 10-lesson art unit. Engaging children in using their five senses, the class first observes the environment around them, paying...
Teach Engineering
Clean it Up!
Harness the power of bacteria. Scholars see how using organisms that exist in nature can help solve human problems in the process known as bioremediation. They research and discuss several successful examples, such as using oil-eating...
Perkins School for the Blind
The Mystery Box - Making Observations and Collecting Data
Making observations and collecting qualitative and quantitative data is a vital skill all scientists need to practice. Help your scientists with partial and no sight learn how to use their other senses to make observations for...
Curated OER
Those Who Have Come Before Me
Class members are transformed into explorers as they work in groups to locate hidden items and map their journey along the way. They then leave clues for other groups of learners to follow, and ultimately discover how past explorations...
University of Georgia
Bag O' Isotopes
Accommodate your chemistry class with an experiment that is both entertaining and educational. Through the activity, blossoming chemists perform calculations on various isotopes, as represented by beans and legumes, to obtain...
Fluence Learning
Writing an Argument: The NIEHS
Should the work of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences be funded by the government? Middle schoolers weigh in on the status of federal funding for programs that protect the environment with three text passages...
Discovery Education
Clutter Cutter
Challenge young learners to cut the clutter with this fun engineering project. As employees of a home and office supply company, young engineers are asked to develop devices that organize everyday items. After participating in a...
Virginia Department of Education
Thermochemistry: Heat and Chemical Changes
What makes particles attract? Here, learners engage in multiple activities that fully describe colligative properties and allow the ability to critically assess the importance of these properties in daily life. Young chemists...
Curated OER
Sour and Bitter: Acids and Bases
Tenth graders distinguish between acids and bases. In this pH lesson, 10th graders view a PowerPoint and discuss the characteristics of an acid and a base. They investigate natural substances to determine the pH level of each.
University of Georgia
Freezing and Melting of Water
Examine the behavior of energy as water freezes and melts. An engaging activity provides a hands-on experience to learners. Collaborative groups collect data and analyze the graphs of the temperature of water as it freezes and then...
Alliance Theater
The Jungle Book Post-Show STEAM Lesson
An ecosystem is really just the flow of energy through many different living organisms. A study of Rudyard Kipling's The Jungle Book leads to an environmental science activity in which learners study how various factors can affect...
Scholastic
Owl Moon Teaching Plan
Capture the engagement of young readers with this collection of activities based on Jane Yolen's book, Owl Moon. Following a shared reading of this children's story, the class explores the geography of the American Northeast,...
Magic of Physics
Scale of the Universe I
From quantum foam to the universe itself, plus everything in between, what is the scale of the world around us? Inquisitive physicists grapple with the proportions of all things great and small using a fascinating interactive. Scholars...
National Security Agency
Time After Time
Save those precious minutes and hours spent planning math lessons with this mini-unit on telling time. Offering a series of engaging hands-on and collaborative learning activities, these three lessons teach children how to read...
Curated OER
Origami In A Box
Students engage in a lesson that is concerned with the assembly of origami folding paper projects. They practice creating different shapes or creatures with the folding of paper. Students are led through a guided practice before...
Khan Academy
Challenge: SmileyFace
Two smiley faces are better than one. The interactive lesson challenges pupils to use methods to alter a program to make it more efficient. Individuals use the new code to create multiple smiley faces that speak. The engaging activity is...
Curated OER
The Path of Electrons
Students engage in an interactive "hot potato" demonstration to gain an appreciation for the flow of electrons through a circuit. They role play the different parts of a simple circuit and send small items representing electrons (paper...
Curated OER
Measuring the Earth (Eratoshenes' method)
Sixth graders engage in problem solving, communicating, reasoning, and connecting to represent and solve problems, using geometric models.
Curated OER
SCRUMPTIOUS SOIL
Young scholars engage in investigations that lead to the discovery that earth materials consist of rocks, soils, water, and air. They build models of soil profiles, using breakfast cereal and other edible materials. They observe how...
Exploratorium
Antigravity Mirror
Is it a bird? Is it a plane? It's super student! Physical science stars can fly during a unit on light as they see the reflection of one leg in a mirror, behind which the other holds them up.