Teach Engineering
Earthquakes Living Lab: FAQs about P Waves, S Waves and More
Let's talk about earthquakes .... Using the Internet, pupils research what causes earthquakes, how scientists measure them, their locations, and their effects. The resource is not only informative, but it also builds crucial research...
Teach Engineering
Earthquakes Living Lab: Finding Epicenters and Measuring Magnitudes
Pairs use an online simulation to determine the epicenter and magnitude of an earthquake. Using real data about the earthquake's maximum S wave amplitudes, they then determine the magnitude. The resource provides a great career...
Teach Engineering
Earthquakes Living Lab: Geology and Earthquakes in Japan
Sometimes it seems as if earthquakes hit the same places over and over again. Class members study Japan in order to determine why earthquakes keep happening there. Pairs work together to research and try to determine whether there are...
Cornell University
Catapults
Ready, aim, fire! Launch to a new level of understanding as scholars build and test their own catapults. Learners explore lever design and how adjusting the fulcrum changes the outcome.
Curated OER
Oil Spill in a Test Tube
Students develop a test tube model of an oil spill in order to experiment with conditions needed for bioremediation. They apply the principals of experimental design by analyzing a research article on the EXXON Valdez bioremediation...
Curated OER
Rover Landing Design Challenge
Students examine the concepts of forces and motion. They work together to design protective devices for their egg rovers as they are dropped from a specific height. They record their observations and discuss.
National Nanotechnology Infrastructure Network
Lab 2: Nanocatalysts Clean Your Car Emissions
Surface area certainly surfaces as a variable for chemical reaction rates. Scholars perform an experiment to discover how the size of catalysts affect the rate of a chemical reaction. They record their results in tables and graphs to...
Teach Engineering
Earthquakes Living Lab: Geology and the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake
We can learn from the past to protect the future. Pairs look at two historical earthquakes: San Francisco, Calif., and Kobe, Japan. Pupils compare the two earthquakes and their impacts, then determine how engineers may use the...
Learning Games Lab
Controlling Water Activity in Food
Food storage matters! Scholars learn how the amount of water in corn can affect its rate of spoilage. They create a control group, then test three corn samples stored in three different locations for water activity. As a result of the...
Wild BC
The Greenhouse Effect: Warming the Earth Experiment
First in a two-part lesson on the greenhouse effect, this lesson involves a classroom demonstration of the phenomenon, and a lab group experiment with color and absorption. Although there are easier ways to demonstrate the greenhouse...
Frederick Moleski, Ph.D.
Blood Spatter: Bloodstain Analysis Experiments
It may be gruesome but somebody's got to do it! Young forensic scientists get a feel for what the job entails as they study blood spatter in seven experimental activites. They examine how spatter can be changed by release height,...
Curated OER
Light and Elements
Here is a full-fledged investigation of light waves, the electromagnetic spectrum, and element spectra. Physicists research a scientist that contributed to our understanding of the behavior of light. They take notes on your lecture, and...
Rice University
Introductory Statistics
Statistically speaking, the content covers several grades. Featuring all of the statistics typically covered in a college-level Statistics course, the expansive content spans from sixth grade on up to high school. Material comes from a...
Curated OER
Reinforcing the Scientific Method
Seventh graders explore a variety of situations and make hypotheses before designing possible experiments. They then are presented with an experiment actually done to solve the original problem and compare it with their results. Students...
Curated OER
Designer Seeds
Young scholars enjoy the challenge of the seed structure design component of this activity and become very competitive as they seek to create a seed that travel farthest.
Curated OER
AP Biology Lab Review
A seventy-two slide PowerPoint that reviews several lab explorations done in an AP Biology course. For each lab there is a description, concepts, and conclusions. Many pictures and graphics make this visually appealing, but it would not...
Curated OER
Tie Dye
High schoolers practice writing research proposals to test the color fastness of a dye once it has been exposed to a t-shirt. Each proposal needs details of experimental design, length of treatment, and means of cleaning the shirt. All...
Curated OER
Living in Extreme Environments
Students explore the living conditions needed to grow bacteria. They develop an experiment that will test the ability of bacteria to survive various temperature extremes. In addition, they complete a lab reprt to share their results.
Curated OER
Where Do Plants Get Their Food?
Plants need food to survive, just like any other living organism. Young biologists analyze an experiment performed in 1610 by Jan van Helmont to determine if plant nutrition is obtained through the soil. First, lab groups work together...
Curated OER
Using Thin Layer Chromatography To Identify amino Acids In Solution
Learners will work in groups to design and conduct an experiment to identify amino acids found in an unknown solution. This instructional activity is taught in three sections: (1) Introduction to chromatography (2) Experimental design...
Teach Engineering
Earthquakes Living Lab: The Theory of Plate Tectonics
Find out if your class agrees with Ice Age: Continental Drift ... or if it's just a fun family movie! Class members research the theory of continental drift, examine evidence of plate tectonics, connect this information to engineering,...
Learning Games Lab
Understanding Water Activity
How does water activity play a role in food spoilage? First, the learners think about which types of foods would be best to take on a backpacking trip based on the water activity of different foods. It then walks through why water...
University of California
Heating and Cooling of the Earth's Surface
Scholars collect data from heating sand and water before forming testable hypotheses about why sand heats up faster. Afterward, they develop and run experiments to test their hypotheses.
Serendip
Photosynthesis Investigation
Can scientists increase the rate of photosynthesis to help clean the air? Scholars complete an experiment determining net photosynthesis. Then, they apply knowledge from the activity to design their own investigations of the factors that...