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Lesson Plan
Curated OER

The Water Cycle

For Teachers 1st - 6th
Students create an "animated" water cycle wheel that illustrates where water comes from and where it goes.
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Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Understanding How Potatoes Grow

For Teachers 2nd
Second graders make a KWL chart and brainstorm what they need for the project of growing potatoes. They choose one potato and plant it in water or peat moss cups and choose a location in which meets the needs of the plants and make their...
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Lesson Plan
Curated OER

It's Rainin', It's Pouring

For Teachers 2nd - 4th
Students take a quick examine part of the water cycle, and the combined gas laws. The lesson lead them through the conditions necessary for cloud formation and allow them to create clouds in three different hands-on activities.
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Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Waste Not Want Not

For Teachers 4th - 6th
Students are introduced to the need to save natural resources. Through inquiry, hands-on activities, and problem solving, students increase their understanding of solid waste materials and the need to reduce, recycle, and reuse.
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Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Air and Weather

For Teachers 2nd
Second graders study Earth's materials. In this air and weather lesson plan, 2nd graders note changes in the weather and examine tools that help us study the weather. Students analyze how changes in the environment make changes in the...
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Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Water-holding Capacity of Earth Materials

For Teachers 5th - 8th
Students design and conduct an experiment to test their ideas about how to speed up or slow down the rate of an enzyme-catalyzed reaction. They have access to an array of physical and chemical factors that might influence enzyme...
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Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Where Does the Water Around Our School Go?

For Teachers 4th - 5th
Pupils in groups, map quadrants of the area around the school and make predictions about the direction of waterflow and zones of accumulation that will occur when it rains. Then when it does rain they check to see if their prediction...
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Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Student Guide: Evolution Videodisk from Videodiscovery

For Teachers 9th - 12th
Students use this worksheet with the videodisk from Video discovery titled Evolution: Inquiries into Biology and Earth Science.Written because there is no computerized control program available, it is to be used with a standard videodisk...
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Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Do Human Practices Affect Water Quality?

For Teachers 6th - 12th
Learners determine if human practices have any noticeable effects on the quality of stream life as measured by the presence of certain macroinvertebrates. They collect, preserve and identify macroinvertibrate samples and quantify the data.
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Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Barnegat Bay Watershed

For Teachers 6th - 8th
Students design a model watershed. In this watershed lesson, students learn the needed parts of a watershed and how they work. Students evaluate how watersheds effect communities.
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Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Weather Whys- Cloud Watching Journal

For Teachers 3rd - 6th
Learners examine how natural processes change the earth by identifying their local water cycle. Individual students complete a cloud journal over a specific period of time. They observe clouds daily and take photographs of the clouds...
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Lesson Plan
Curated OER

What is the Rock Cycle and Its Processes?

For Teachers 5th - 7th
Geology beginners examine three different rock samples and determine their origin by their characteristics. By making and recording observations, they become familiar with features of igneous, metamorphic, and sedimentary rock types....
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Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Measurement: Stream Flow & Stadium Capacity

For Teachers 8th
Eighth graders study the scientific fields and how information can be monitored and recorded.  For this scientific inquiry lesson students view a PowerPoint presentation and complete a hands on activity. 
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Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Reflection and Absorption of Light

For Teachers Higher Ed
Students use a microcomputer connected to a light sensor and temperature probe to explore the reflection and absorption of radiation for different surfaces. Students follow instructions in this guided inquiry based lab and are then asked...
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Lesson Plan
Curated OER

What is a Karst

For Teachers 5th - 6th
Students investigate landforms by holding a class experiment. In this topography lesson, students define the word "karst" and discover why sinkholes are created on the surface of the Earth by completing worksheets. Students create a...
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Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Sky Show

For Teachers 6th - 8th
Students participate in a discussion of the sky and colors. They watch a demonstration of how colors can change. They examine the issue of if weather should be a part of their coursework.
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Lesson Plan
NOAA

Deep-Sea Ecosystems – A Tale of Deep Corals

For Teachers 9th - 12th Standards
Many have debated which came first, the chicken or the egg, but this lesson debates which came first, the hydrocarbons or the carbonate reef. After a discussion on deep-sea corals, scholars receive a set of questions to research and...
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Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Is the Coast Really Toast?: A Lesson About Volcanoes, Phase Changes, and the Art of Estimation

For Teachers 9th - 12th
Clever! Use a clip from the 1997 film, Volcano, to get your chemistry class knee-deep in heat concepts related to lava. In the movie scene, lava flow is stopped in the nick of time. Your class must use calculations to determine if this...
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Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Ecosystem Lesson Plan: Food Chain/Food Web

For Teachers 3rd - 4th
Students discuss ecosystems, eliciting their current knowledge of an ecosystem. Students receive an Ecosystems document and look at the picture. Students brainstorm connection between the cover picture and ecosystems. The indicated...
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Lesson Plan
Cornell University

Spectral Analysis with DVDs and CDs

For Students 9th - 12th
Build a spectrometer to analyze properties of light. Scholars examine the spectrum from CDs and DVDs from two different light sources. Using the spectrum, they work to identify different elements.
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Lesson Plan
Curated OER

What's Under There?

For Teachers 6th - 8th
Young scholars determine ways to make "observations" about unknowns, such as the land beneath an ice sheet or the interior of the Earth, using tools other than sight. They build "mystery boxes" and exchange them with other groups to...
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Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Chemical Weathering

For Teachers 5th - 8th
Students measure the effect of water temperature on the rate of a chemical reaction, similar to the interaction of a weak acid and carbonate rock, using hot water and effervescent antacid tablets.
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Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Peat Pots

For Teachers 5th - 8th
Students place a peat pot in water to observe and calculate the rate of capillarity in a model of a soil. This task assesses students' abilities to make simple observations, collect, record, and represent data, use a data table to...
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Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Biome Trip

For Teachers 10th
Tenth graders comprehed how individual organism adapt and relate to an environment. They investigate where biomes are located and what specific biomes are like. Pupils give examples of biomes (land and water), and how temperature and...