In need of a neat idea that incorporates technology skills, art, and history? Young art historians will each select an old photograph from a local archive to digitally restore. The primary focus is to add color, clarity, and remake the...

Up it goes! Groups must design and build a windmill able to lift a weight. The packet includes discussion points to use prior to the build that cover topics such as variables, fairness, and the design process.

Middle schoolers are likely very familiar with the concept of bullying and cliques. Discuss their experiences and brainstorm ways to handle peer conflict and feelings of exclusion with a poem that focuses on bullying, and a second...

Learners participate in a variety of activities surrounding the book, Gingerbread Baby, by Jan Brett. They can create a house, a map, ornaments, and their own books. Additionally, they can draw, paint, or write out attributes for each...

Here is a great way to give your class a real-life job experience, while also serving the community. They explore a variety of volunteer opportunities to build career interests, gain work experience, and help their community grow. This...

Like a fresh canvas, stem cells can turn into almost anything. In a comprehensive lesson, high school biologists use clay to build a 3-D model of cell division and the processes that occur during the first 14 days of development. Also...

Build the writing skills of your junior high wordsmiths with activities that introduce many essential skills of writing.  As a class, they develop working definitions of formal vs. informal writing, explore different categories of...

Your sense of hearing depends upon tiny hairs deep inside your ear and if you lose these hairs, you lose your hearing. Here, groups explore hearing through the decibel measurement of common sounds. As a class, participants discuss...

Review the multiple methods of solving quadratic equations through an analysis of the discriminant. Scholars use the discriminant to determine the best solution method and then solve various equations. As a challenge, learners build...

Groups create a set for a play or story they select, build a model, and share their stage with the class. The team explains the rationale for their choices and the mood they feel their staging creates.

Students build ocean floor structures, then map and model an unfamiliar ocean floor. They are introduced to bathymetry and sea floor features, and discover one of the most widely usd methods for studying the ocean.

Using toothpicks, marshmallows, and round colored sticky dots, physical science enthusiasts build models of an atomic nucleus. In this eighth grade chemistry lesson plan, they play an atom-naming game with the models that they have...

A geometry game that resembles Battleship is the foundation for hide and seek where "hiders" draw shapes on coordinate planes and "seekers" must guess the shape and its location based on questions and clues. Reproducible, paper-sized...

Class members connect engineering with an understanding of linear programming using a technical resource. Scholars learn about linear programming (linear optimization) and how it applies to engineering design in the first of two modules....

Processed foods use inorganic compounds for flavoring and preservation. This take-home laboratory challenges scholars to find 20 different compounds identified on the labels of foods to list on their data collection sheet. The activity...

Can an area with no soil turn into a forest? Scholars learn about the process of ecological succession using an interesting presentation. It covers both primary and secondary succession in the building of new ecosystems.

Learners study the characteristics of wetlands. They are introduced to terms and different examples of wetlands. The hands-on activity reinforces the different parts of the wetlands, and provides a working model of a wetland.

Some disabled students have a difficulty understanding what is and what is not publicly appropriate behavior. Help them build healthy social skills by defining public and private behaviors, labeling public and private places, and...

Dig into some prehistoric vocabulary in Bob Barner's informative book Dinosaur Bones. This works best if you introduce the primitive words before reading the story. These are the focus terms in the text: ancient, climate, extinct,...

Learners engage in this, the third in a three-part series on ships. The overall lesson series is designed to allow students to extend their understanding of floating, sinking, density, and buoyancy and apply it to the design and testing...

Students build and program a car to drive a specific challenge distance.They must at the end of the lesson, have the car that stops the closest to a challenge distance.

Students study DNA decoding and protein synthesis. They use the amino acid table to translate DNA, break DNA strands into three nucleotide codes, and translate nucleotides into amino acid protein codes. They research the importance of...

Use a vocabulary chart to introduce math functions. The class defines a list of mathematical vocabulary terms on a worksheet, as well as completes equations and expressions. They examine word problems and practice transcribing them into...

Your geology class practices taking core samples of a potato to examine the stratigraphy. This is a terrific modeling lesson that helps youngsters visualize strata that cannot be seen from the surface of the ground. The directions...