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Spuds in Space
Learners explore the effects of velocity on an object when it collides with another object. They design and outfit a potato astronaut in a spacesuit to withstand the hazards of high velocity impacts from space debris and meteoroids.
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"I'm Thankful For..." Placemat
Students discover the story behind Thanksgiving through comparing and contrasting what pilgrims were thankful for, memorizing Thanksgiving poems, and creating a placemat that depicts the poem.
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Solar Power
Students discover how engineers use solar energy to heat buildings. They investigate the thermal properties of different materials. They evaluate the usefulness of each material.
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Exploring the Night Sky: Summer
Learners explain how moon phases occur. They describe and explain at least two common misconceptions that people have about the moon. Students explain what a star is. They explain 3 ways that the night sky has been used throughout history.
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Coronal Mass Ejections
For this coronal mass ejections worksheet, students observe a time line of events that took place during a solar storm. Students use the time line to answer 3 questions about the solar storm and the time it took to reach Earth. Students...
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The Transit of Mercury
In this transit of Mercury activity, students read about Earth and Mercury lining up so that Mercury passes across the disk of the sun from the Earth's view. Students solve 3 problems and they determine the diameter of the solar disk...
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Planets in Proportion
Learners apply estimation strategies and proportional reasoning to determine a scale comparing the planetary bodies to Earth. They convert measurements of time and distance using scientific notation. Both the metric and customary units...
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Email From Another Planet
In this article about emails and plants instructional activity, learners read short descriptions about 8 planets in the solar system and then imagine they are visiting one of the planets and send an email to a family member describing...
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Classroom Planetarium
Students work in groups to create the planets of the solar system. In this planets lesson, students create a hanging solar system taking into account the size, shape and position of the planets. Students discuss the gravity...
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Mercury
Students study the planet Mercury and develop an understanding of the planet's composition, geology, and other important characteristics. They explore a Web resource on the planet Mercury which is the central focus of this lesson.
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Voyage of Discovery
Students develop a sense of the scale of our solar system by creating a one to ten billion scale model. They calculate the relative sizes and distances for the planets and asteroid belt using a guiding worksheet. To create the model they...
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Two Views of the Universe
Students build the two models of the universe created by Aristotle and Copernicus. They compare and contrast the two universes. They create hypothesis on how each model functions.
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Gravity Gets You Down
Students investigate the force of gravity and how it effects different objects that are put into acceleration when applied the experiment of free falling. They drop different objects that have a variety of masses and some that cause air...
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Physical Science: Gravity
Students investigate the properties of force and gravity and their effects on everyday life. In groups, they test various balls by bouncing them on different surfaces and observe the properties. In another activity, they test marbles and...
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Water Cycle Bag
Students enclose water in an airtight bag and leave it in a warm area to view the water cycle. In this water cycle lesson plan, students observe evaporation, condensation, and precipitation. They then discuss what they learned about the...
Space Awareness
The Engine of Life
There is a specific zone, or distance from a star, that a planet must be in order to have water in a liquid form. The activity demonstrates how flux density depends on its distance from the source. A photovoltaic cell gets power to...
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Weather
Second graders, while examining the weather, describe the characteristics of the Sun, Stars and Earth's Moon (e.g relative size, shape, color, production of light, heat). Thus, the give examples of how the sun affects Earth's processes...
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Solar Matters II
Students research solar energy. In this solar energy lesson plan, students construct a KWL chart and research solar energy through various websites and related readings. Students complete a science journal page as an assessment.
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A New Slant On The Seasons
Students identify how the tilt and position of the Earth causes the seasons. After a discussion of the seasons and when they begin. Using themselves as the objects in the universe, they role play how the rotational movement of the...
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The Universe
Students recognize that the stages of evolution a star goes through are determined by the size of the star. They conduct research to draw a set of diagrams illustrating the stages in the evolution of three sizes of stars.
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SDO: Measuring the Speed of an Eruptive Prominence
In this eruptive prominence instructional activity, students read about a plasma ejection from the sun measured by the Solar Dynamics Observatory. Students solve 3 problems using the given diagrams of the ejection. They determine the...
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Demonstrating the Distances of Stars
Learners examine the distance from Earth to stars. They create a model to show the arrangement of constellations. They also identify the importance of the parallax effect.
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The Webb Space Telescope: Detecting Dwarf Planets
In this detecting dwarf planets worksheet, students read about the Webb Space Telescope that will be launched in 2014 to detect dwarf planets using an infrared telescope. Students solve 3 problems and create a graph for each using given...
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Tidal Forces-Let'er Rip!
For this tidal forces worksheet, students read about the gravitational pull from the moon that causes the ocean tides. Students solve 3 problems including finding the Roche or the tidal radius for the Earth and Moon, comparing the Roche...