Which modification is the best? Using the scientific method, pairs determine the effects of each control surface on the distance of a glider's flight. The activity, section 16 in a 22-part unit on aviation, allows pupils to gain a better...

Should athletes carb load before an event or consume carbohydrates during the competition? Scholars discuss how to set up a hypothesis and experiment to answer a question relating carbohydrates and athletic performance. Then, they read...

What do cereal, fog, and space shuttles have to do with newspapers? A collection of science investigations encourage critical thinking using connections to the various parts of the newspaper. Activities range from building origami seed...

The Fantastic Voyage is becoming close to reality. The class reads an article on the use of nanotechnology in the medical field and participate in a discussion about what they read. The discussion method helps class members become more...

How do scientists determine what questions to ask to meet their research goals? Help your class develop an inquiry mindset with a lesson based on studies in the Gorongosa National Park. Partners create their own research questions by...

How much does your class know about psychology? What about empirical evidence? If they could use some time to learn the essentials of psychology, use a quick reference sheet to note what they know before the test, after the unit, and at...

What's that lurking in the shadows? An activity that demonstrates how eclipses happen. Science scholars investigate how light and distance interact to form shadows. The experiment uses simple materials to generate data and observations...

Promote critical thinking and literary analysis with a short activity. Readers of Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart respond to a series of questions modeled on Bloom's Taxonomy.    

Science, technology, and math come together in this one combination exercise. Analyzing the common soda can from both a purely mathematical perspective and a scientific angle allows for a surprisingly sophisticated comparison of...

With Earth Day quickly approaching, as well as many science fairs, why not challenge your class to investigate geothermal energy or other renewable energy resources? There are five driving questions explored in depth here, as well as...

Life is only a reflection of what we allow ourselves to see. The lesson includes three experiments on light reflection, light refraction, projection, lenses, and optical systems. Each experiment builds off the ones before and...

Does increasing the pressure between two moving plates provide a stabilizing force or create more destruction? The hands-on lesson encourages exploration of strike-split fault models. The sixth lesson in a 20-part series asks...

Give your class a chance to show what they know. In the last installment of a seven-part series, pupils summarize and review what they have learned in the series. They present their solutions for creating a biosensor to detect cancer...

Winogradsky columns are ideal for observing the role of bacteria and other microorganisms in an ecosystem. This student activity guide is complete with data tables for observations and analysis questions for processing what was observed....

What features do scientists use to classify animals into groups? Class groups examine a series of paired images of vertebrates (a bass and a trout, a toad and a newt, a crocodile and a tortoise, an owl and a robin, a tiger and a bear)...

My room isn't messy — it's a scientific experiment in entropy! Scholars investigate entropy, enthalpy, and spontaneity through a guided procedure and set of questions. The lesson connects the Second Law of Thermodynamics, energy...

If you're reading the story "Merry Christmas, Geraldine" by Holly Keller, this is a fantastic cross-curricular resource to use. Complete with activities for language arts, science, social studies, art, and math, you'll get the most out...

Using gloves, shortening, tape, and a lot of ice, participants experience the feeling of having blubber. The experiment's eight steps follow an informative page about blubber and animals that have it.

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...

Students apply information regarding simple machines along with the math concept "ratios." The teacher introduces the concept that technology is the application of scientific knowledge and mathematics concepts to solve a problem. This is...

A 15-page package thoroughly teaches your physics or astronomy learners about Kepler's three laws of planetary motion. Each one is stated and explained. Class members answer questions, solve problems, and participate in the classic...

Here's a practical engineering challenge: you need to build an enclosure for your dogs, using material that they can't chew through. It's going to be a lot of work to build, so you want to do it right. What material should you choose for...