Get your young scientists excited about geology through the study of dinosaur tracks! They will use their power of observation to learn how tracks are made and use critical thinking strategies to suggest a scenario in which they were...

Scholars watch a video and meet a scientist who is studying sharks as she explains her observations about the sharks and provides her hypothesis to explain their behavior. Learners then act like a scientist as they watch an aquarium...

The 2016-2017 protests over the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) motivated Camille Seaman to create "We Are Still Here," a photo essay featuring portraits of contemporary Native Americans who protested the pipeline. This eight-page...

Arthur Sze's poem, "The Shapes of Leaves," encourages young scholars to notice and speak for others who "do not speak." The instructional activity begins with pupils writing about a tree that they really like. The class then examines an...

Teach your class to think of electrons as tiny packets of energy that travel in waves. Through a short video and diagram, participants see how electrons are located around the nucleus of an atom. They then get into groups and try to...

Many types of cancer treatments now depend on nanotechnology—a big "little" discovery. Scholars begin by removing "malignant" tissue from simulated brains, one using fluorescent markers thanks to nanotechnology and one without. This...

Young scientists begin a field journal by following four steps. A real-world example of an entry showcases the different parts, including location, date, drawings, and more. 

Beginning with a discussion about using technology to collect data, this resource includes a video about the next Mars rover as an example. Young scientists are taught that filtering is necessary before collected data can be analyzed....

Every great scientist knows that the process of inquiry is a very important skill. Provide your learners with visual impairments with an opportunity to explore objects scientifically. They examine several pieces of fruit and generate...

Learning to craft quality questions is a skill that can be taught. Class members use the Question Formulation Technique to learn how to create and refine both closed-ended and open-ended questions. They then view West of the West's...

Thinking about designing a project for your social studies or environmental science classes? Use an overview of a project that prompts class groups to research an environmental issue.

How do you put something as large as the universe in perspective? Use a series of scale experiments. Classmates collaborate around four experiments to examine the scale of the earth-moon system, our solar system, the Milky Way galaxy,...

Welcome to your new job as an astrophysicist, astrobiologist, engineer, or research scientist at NASA. Your job is to search for alien life in our solar system! Throughout a unit of activities, learners search the galaxy through...

Learners generate vocabulary words synonymous or related to "noise." In this literacy lesson, students listen to the book Polar Bear, Polar Bear, What do You Hear? by Bill Martin and Eric Carle and discuss the meaning of vocabulary words...

For this objective thinking worksheet, student practice thinking objectively when observing information. They summarize two paragraphs. One they summarize in an objective manner and the other is summarized in a subjective manner.

The threat posed by super volcanoes is explored in a short video that reviews the destruction caused by Mount Tambora in 1815 and by Peru's Huaynaputina in 1600. Think it can't happen again? The narrator contends that the explosive...

Is qualitative or quantitative research more convincing when it comes to climate change? In the eighth instructional activity during this 21-part series, scholars begin by performing a quantitative analysis of deforestation and...

Students review data about a health problem and prepare an investigative report. Teams trade reports and utilize skills developed from previous lessons to evaluate the critical thinking evident in the reports.

Discover different dimensions with paper folding. Pupils first read about zero, one, two, and three dimensions, and then learn about the fourth dimension, time. They then use origami to create models of shapes in three dimensions and use...

Imagine a race to complete a puzzle where each person has the same 50 pieces, knows they are missing other pieces, and must figure out how everything fits together. The winner gets fame, listed in books for years to come, and a financial...

Students demonstrate knowledge of the six basic steps to problem solving. They demonstrate ability to apply these six basic steps to problem solving by guiding other students in the solution of a given problem or set of problems.

High school students examine their own water-based environments, within the Mystic Watershed. As the learners engage in inquiry-based, hands-on projects, critical thinking skills and problem-solving, the project will lead them to cross...

How does the scientific process begin? Introduce ecology scholars to scientific inquiry through an insightful, data-driven lesson. Partners examine data from an ongoing research study to determine the questions it answers. The resource...