Young scholars design their own pretend creatures and places to live by working together as a team. They connect their imaginary creatures and habitat to invent a story about how they live or an event that could happen to them.

Student explore the relationship of static electricity to current electricity, circuits, electromagnets, electro generators, and public electric utilities. In this Green Team lesson plan, 4th graders participate in hands-on science...

Students read "Team Moon: How 400,000 People Landed Apollo 11 on the Moon," by Catherine Thimmesh. They watch portions of the movie "Apollo 13." Students use the internet and the attached study guide to discover specific information...

Sixth graders work in groups or teams. It is important that they realize that successful teams can produce greater results. Students be given a team task to construct a span with given supplies. Clear directions are given as to what to...

Change one variable and try again. Teams build basic balsa gliders and collect data on their flight distances and times. Through collaboration, the team decides on two modifications to make to the basic design and collect data for the...

Teams take their cavern designs and build a model from clay or paper mache that can be buried in sand. Testing involves dropping a bowling ball on the buried cavern. Teams dig out their cavern, inspect it for damage, and consider...

Technology or engineering teams are given a task to design, construct, and test the efficiency of a structure that will foster an even temperature throughout an entire sunny day. Intended as a long-term project, pupils research, plan,...

Environmentally friendly engineering teams construct a water wheel and experiment with its speed and the resulting amount of weight it can lift. Consider following this activity with two more of the same title by the same publisher when...

Learners investigate how solar energy is converted into heat in part two of the 10-part Discover Your Changing World series. They build and test homemade solar cookers to boil water and cook rice. Pupils consider the impact of heat...

Students apply Team Games Tournaments, a cooperative studying strategy developed at Johns Hopkins University. They utilize the games as an assessment alternative and/or as a review technique.

Who is not drawn to trading cards? In this instructional activity, junior ecologists create a trading card of an animal or plant from one of Arizona's biotic communities. Gorgeous sample cards are provided in the lesson plan as well as a...

Teams of Texas tourists gather into groups to analyze what they can do with $50 worth of an alternative fuel. They write checks, keep a balance sheet, and map out their sight-seeing route taking into consideration the location of...

In a nose-cone to nose-cone competition, which rocket will prevail? Teams form rocket companies to design and build a rocket while competing against other teams in an economic challenge. The team that comes up with the best benefit/cost...

How do rockets fly? Teams design, build, and launch a rocket made from a two-liter bottle to explore forces on a rocket such as Newton's Laws of Motion.  During the design phase, young engineers draw a diagram of their rocket and...

Teams design and build a windmill, under budget, that can lift an object. The groups evaluate and reflect on their own design, then on those produced by other teams. The goal is to determine which design is the most...

If a car gets heavier, it goes farther? By running an activity several times, teams experience Newton's Second Law of Motion. The teams vary the amount of weight they catapult off a wooden block car and record the distance the...

After reading about the history and science of personal floatation devices, patents, and intellectual property, engineering teams design a life vest for a can of soup. To evaluate which groups considered the need for waterproofing, hold...

The good thing about building this rover is you get to eat it afterwards. Pairs determine rover parts they want to include in their design based upon their cost and usefulness. The teams design their rovers, build them from edible...

Concentrate to determine the best reflector design. Pairs use the engineering design process to build a reflector to increase the current output of a photovotaic panel. Teams arrive at a final design and present it to the class along...

Teams use the design process to design, build, and test a model levee to protect the town from a wall of water. A handout provides a price list for the materials learners can use to build their levee within a budget.

Design and build a rover ... then eat it? This activity has groups of two design and build Mars rovers. The teams determine what instruments they want to include with their rover and plan a budget. They calculate the cost of the body of...

In the last portion of the six-part unit, teams perform an experiment with gold nanoparticles to determine which sport drink has the most electrolytes. The nanoparticles are used as chemical sensors and fluoresce in different wavelengths...

The last activity in a nine-part series has teams create a Google Earth map using the data they collected during a field trip. Using the map, groups analyze the results and make adjustments to the map to reflect their analysis. A short...

What kind of design challenges are there in building structures to support rocket engines? The unit takes design teams through the process of building the lightest possible thrust support structure that can withstand the necessary forces...