Missouri Department of Elementary
Feeling Faces
A instructional activity help scholars identify emotions through facial expressions. After a friendly puppet reads scholars a poem all about feelings, learners act out how they would feel when a specific action happens to them....
Chicago Botanic Garden
Nature Walk and Ecosystem Introduction
A food web has no organism higher than a tertiary consumer because there wouldn't be enough energy left to sustain them. The fourth installment in a seven-part series begins with a nature walk to get pupils thinking about their...
Perkins School for the Blind
Safety Crash Testing
Everyone knows that cars have safety features, but wouldn't it be fun to design your own? Learners with visual impairments build a ramp and then attempt to use the material provided to design a safety system to protect a raw egg from a...
BioEd Online
Nutritional Challenges
Eating healthy can be a challenge, especially for people with special dietary needs. After learning about standard nutritional needs for adults, learners take on the role of a dietician and work together to create a menu for one of the...
Illustrative Mathematics
Size Shuffle
In the eyes of children the world is a simple place, objects are either big or small. This simple activity aims to expand the comparison language of young mathematicians as they use the words taller and shorter to compare their...
Mathematics Vision Project
Quadratic Functions
Inquiry-based learning and investigations form the basis of a deep understanding of quadratic functions in a very thorough unit plan. Learners develop recursive and closed methods for representing real-life situations,...
Stanford University
Solstice and Equinox Season Model
How can December 21 be the shortest day of the year when all days are 24 hours long? Pupils see how to build a model showing the differences between winter and summer solstices and equinoxes. Using this model, classes can then discuss...
American Physiological Society
Feeling the Heat
How do the changing seasons affect the homes where we live? This question is at the forefront of engineering and design projects. Challenge your physical science class to step into the role of an architect to build a model home...
DiscoverE
Human Suspension Bridge
When is it okay to be suspended in school? When you're part of a human suspension bridge! Learners first model tension and compression in pairs. Once complete, they get together as a class to model a suspension bridge.
Oklahoma State University
Hairy Heredity
Young scholars learn that heredity comes down to the flip of a coin with this cross-curricular math and science lesson. Using smiley faces as a model, students toss coins to determine which dominant or recessive traits...
NOAA
Oceans of Energy
Are the earth's oceans really just giant batteries, waiting for their energy to be harnessed? Middle school mechanical engineers will be shocked by the amazing amount of energy that forms around them after diving into part four of a...
Agriculture in the Classroom
Six Kinds Do It All
Teach young engineers that all machines, no matter how complicated or complex, are made up of just six simple devices with this hands-on physical science lesson. Using the included templates, students first create paper models of...
Council for the Curriculum, Examinations and Assessment
Feelings and Emotions
The focus of the second in a 10-session course on Social, Physical, Emotional, Cognitive and Spiritual (SPECS) health is on learning to express and manage feelings appropriately. Class members learn different ways of...
Virginia Department of Education
Linear Modeling
An inquiry-based algebra lesson explores real-world applications of linear functions. Scholars investigate four different situations that can be modeled by linear functions, identifying the rate of change, as well as the...
Columbus City Schools
Making Waves
Learning about waves can have its ups and downs, but a demo-packed tool kit has the class "standing" for more! Learners gain experience with several different wave types, organizing observations and data, and wave...
Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers
Insulators and Conductors
In a classic activity, emerging electricians test various objects for electrical conductivity in a circuit. Each group constructs a simple circuit by following a diagram. Predictions are made and objects are inserted into the circuit,...
Illustrative Mathematics
Coins in a Circular Pattern
What starts as a basic question of division and remainders quickly turns abstract in this question of related ratios and radii. The class works to surround a central coin with coins of the same and different values, then develops a...
Virginia Department of Education
The Cycles of Nature
Encourage peer collaboration and assist with the creation of visual aids to identify carbon, water, and nitrogen cycles as your class learns more about nature. They discuss relative information, create a visual aid...
Curated OER
Insects?
Can you tell the difference between a bug and an insect? Aren't they the exact same thing? Let your learners explore, identify, classify, and document the differences they see in bugs and insects. The activity sheet suggests several...
KOG Ranger Program
Use It Safely!
Campfires are not the only way that forest fires start. In a worksheet and word matching activity, young campers learn about common fuel and heat sources that, when combined, can be the spark to a dangerous and harmful forest fire.
Mathematics Assessment Project
Representing and Combining Transformations
Transform your learners into master geometers with an activity that asks them to first complete an assessment task drawing the result after transformation of a given shape in the coordinate plane. They then use cards to...
NOAA
Mapping the Deep-Ocean Floor
How do you create a map of the ocean floor without getting wet? Middle school oceanographers discover the process of bathymetric mapping in the third installment in a five-part series of lessons designed for seventh and eighth graders....
Curated OER
Breathing and Exercise
Students observe and record how breathing changes with physical activities. In this physical activity lesson students form groups and complete their activity and worksheets.
Curated OER
Black Tiger Academy Martial Arts Fitness Unit – Lesson 14
“Rule your mind or it will rule you."—Horace. Black Tiger Academy’s martial arts lesson 14 of 20 introduces the class to dietary fats. There are good fats and not so good fats, and this activity helps them identify which is which. Then...