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Classroom Planetarium

For Teachers K - 4th
Students work in groups to create the planets of the solar system.  In this planets lesson plan, students create a hanging solar system taking into account the size, shape and position of the planets.  Students discuss the...
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Galaxies

For Teachers 10th
Tenth graders explore the structure and content of galaxies. Through discussion, lab, and hands-on activities, they discover the general structure of the three types of galaxies as well as the effect they have on the structure and...
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What's In Our Backyard?

For Teachers 8th
Eighth graders investigate the importance of an ecosystem by studying their own backyards.  For this environmental lesson, 8th graders examine a schoolyard or backyard by marking quadrants and recording any animal or plant findings...
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Cosmic Wheels

For Teachers 3rd - 4th
Students build a scale model of the Solar System and determine the time other planets take to travel around the Sun in comparison to the time of the Earth's revolution. The velocity of the planets are also determined in this lesson plan.
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Scientists Use Web Site to Report Volcano Activity

For Teachers 2nd - 6th
Students react to statements about volcanoes, then read a news article about scientists monitoring eruptions at Augustine volcano in Alaska. For this earth science and current events lesson, the teacher introduces the lesson with a...
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Mountain Creation: A Drama Exploration

For Teachers 4th - 6th
Students explore mountain formation. In this cross curriculum earth science and legend writing instructional activity, students listen to the poem "The Way to make Perfect Mountains" by Byrd Baylor and identify examples of vivid language...
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Hot Air

For Teachers 9th - 12th
High schoolers conduct an experiment to determine how hot air affect the path of laser. In this physics lesson plan, students explain why stars appear to twinkle at night. They discuss how light travels from space to Earth.
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Galaxies Galore, Games and More

For Teachers 5th - 8th
Students practice skills used in scientific investigation while studying the three main types of galaxies. Students identify Earth as part of Milky Way galaxy, the parts of galaxies, and the types of galaxies, as well as classify...
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Density Challenge

For Teachers 8th - 9th
Students calculate the densities of several liquids that appear similar.  In this physical science lesson, students go beyond understanding the way liquids of different densities behave to researching how this knowledge applies in...
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Making a Cave

For Teachers 7th - 12th
Young scholars discuss caves. In this science lesson, students experiment with how dissolution, a chemical weathering process, leads to the formation of caves. Once the cave is finsihed young scholars draw a picture or describe in...
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Bat Ecology

For Teachers 3rd - 12th
Students, through hands on games and activities, discover how bats live and how bats benefit ecosystems. They play a game designed to show them how echolocation works and another to show how mother bats locate their young through their...
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Floods: Rising Waters and You

For Teachers 9th - 12th
Students will examine how floods work and why they can cause so much damage and destruction. They use a stream table to observe the processes that lead to flooding and the effects of floods on human-made structures. Includes a guide to...
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The Formation and Value of Temperate Grasslands

For Teachers 6th - 9th
Students get an overview of the climate and organisms of the North American Prairie. After a lecture, and watching some videos imbedded in this plan, students compile research data on the North American Prairie.
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Ecology 12 Human Effects

For Teachers 9th - 12th
High schoolers are able to respond to a reading passage concerning human effects (under development) in Madagascar. They have a quiz on primary and secondary succesion as their bell ringer. Students write an essay on the topic "No man...
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Standard 4 Review-Human Impact

For Teachers 9th - 12th
In this human impact on the environment worksheet, students fill in the blanks to complete sentences about how humans have negatively affected the environment. They complete sentences about the actions taken to reduce and repair the...
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Garbage Pizza

For Teachers K - 2nd
Students examine amount of garbage disposed of by average household weekly, classify different categories of garbage and describe composition of landfills, investigate what happens to waste after it is collected by garbage trucks, and...
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Convection Activities

For Teachers 4th - 6th
Students conduct a series of hands-on activities to demonstrate that heated air expands and that warm air rises because it is less dense.
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The Uses of Radiation

For Teachers 5th - 8th
No visual aids, no activities, and no demonstrations accompany this plan. What you will find, is background information for a short lecture on the use of isoptopic radiation in the medical field and in our everyday lives. Should you...
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Toys in Space

For Teachers 3rd - 4th
Pupilsexplore how gravity affects the operation of toys and simple machines. They watch a video and experiment with simple machines.
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Space Salad

For Teachers 4th - 10th
Pupils identify and analyze some of the similarities between Earth and Mars. Students identify why scientists believe that living things such as plants can live on Mars. Pupils evaluate each of the Growing Space modules identify in the...
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Probes, Exploration & Application

For Teachers 8th - 12th
Students examine some of the benefits of the space program to our life on Earth.
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Life Beyond Earth

For Teachers 5th - 8th
Students investigate the solar system and what makes a planet habitable. They complete an online Webquest, simulate a NASA training program online, take an online quiz, answer discussion questions, and locate newspaper articles about the...
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Science: What Is a Barometer?

For Teachers 4th
Fourth graders discover how barometers help to predict the weather. Using newspapers, they examine the weather forecast and determine the meaning of high and low as they pertain to pressure. After making cluster diagrams, 4th graders...
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The Magic School Bus Lost in Space

For Teachers K - 2nd
Students identify the planets by making two models of the Solar System. They create a model that shows the order of the planets and a model that shows the planets sizes as compared to one another. They may write about the planet they...