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Climate, Corals, and Change
Students examine oxygen isotope ratios and how they are related to water temperature. They also identify three forcing factor changes for climate change.
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Savvy in Sacramento
Students take a field trip to the state capital, Sacramento. Using the Internet, they explain the physical and human geographic features of the area and discuss interactions between the people of California between the time of explorers...
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Language Arts: Ode to the Ordinary
Eighth graders select ordinary objects, determine their uses, and write poems about them. Once they select an object, they create a web about its uses to serve as an outline. Once they have written their own odes, 8th graders meet in...
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Do new kinds of insects appear after soil modification?
Students explore and experiment with the concept do new kinds of insects appear after soil modification. They assess and review scientific methods of observation, predicting, variables, math skills, ratio, proportions, graphs and the art...
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Science: Her-bariums Galore!
Young scholars collect and identify plant species and construct herbariums both at school and at home. By gathering data from both locales, they draw conclusions and make predictions about plant diversity. Upon completion of the...
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Natural Gas: An American Treasure
Do your fourth graders need extra practice with evaluating fact and opinion? An informative resource provides two reading passages in which learners distinguish sentences as fact or as opinion. Additionally, they determine how the...
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Exploration of "Pillbugs"
Fifth graders define vocabulary terms, identify the characteristics of a pillbug, and create a dichotomous key. Then they examine the pillbugs and make observations and record these observations. Finally, 5th graders observe specific...
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Bird Ecology Unit
Tenth graders conduct various activities utilizing the scientific method to formulate a hypothesis, conduct a controlled experiment, collect and analyze the data and communicate their results through a poster. They also identify...
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Desert Plant Detectives
Students examine and categorize plants in their own schoolyard desert garden and then observe other plant areas of their schoolyard.
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Pen Pals
Students collect bird count data at their sites, and share and compare the data collected from two different schoolyards using computer technology.
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Historical Air Photo Interpretation
Students identify and analyze land use changes over time with historical aerial photographs. They classify different land use into categories.
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Where Are the Bugs?
Students trap, collect and identify arthropods in a newly created desert tortoise preserve area over a period of one school year. They determine the rate at which various arthropods take up residence in the newly landscaped area. Data is...
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What Is An Insect?
Students find and classify insects. They collect insects, study them with a hand lens and identify its body parts. Afterwards, they discus various types of insects and thier Orders such as beetles, butterflies and moths, grasshoppers, etc.
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Science Current Events
Seventh graders write science current events articles using various media sources.
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U.S. History: Antebellum Heroes and Villains
Eighth graders research and write reports on key figures of the Antebellum Period. The projects also include pictures, bibliographies, and timelines about their assigned figure. In addition, 8th graders present oral reports to classmates.
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Ball Identification Exercise
Fourth graders participate in a ball identification exercise to help them identify birds. As a class, their teacher throws them a variety of different sized and colored balls for them to describe. Using these factors, they work together...
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Science: Fossil of a Carbonized Plant
Learners classify leaves by shape and margins and use them to create models of plant fossils. By using paper over a leaf, they simulate fossilization of organisms onto sedimentary rocks. Following instructions on worksheets, students...
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Language Arts: Plot Summary
Eighth graders implement plot summary organizers to identify essential elements such as conflict and resolution in literature. In pairs, they retell fairy tales to each other and complete plot summaries about them. As students read new...
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Vegetation Scavenger Hunt
Students use picture cards to familiarize themselves with plant structures and characteristics. They collect plant specimens without destroying the plant and mount them creating a class herbarium.
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Investigate the Sonoran Desert
Young scholars read article in Chain Reaction about the Sonoran Desert and answer questions.
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Stator limbatus Study, Part 1
Second graders experiment identifying beetle emergence and exit holes in seeds, count them, look for beetle eggs with a magnifier and count how many beetle eggs they find. They then graph on a data sheet the findings from their research.
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Columbian Contexts
Students explore geo-political and economic contexts for the European Renaissance journeys of exploration, including those of Columbus, create cartographic symbols, and add those symbols to a print-out of Ptolemy's map.
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Leaves
Pupils explore, observe, and collect leaves from outside. They make journal entries, discuss the differences and common features of leaves and what function leaves serve. They will discuss the plant and tree leaves. Students draw...
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Redwood Trees: How Does Water Get to the Top of the Tree
High schoolers discuss photosynthesis. They explore and discuss surface tension, hydrogen bonding and capillary action with hands on experiments. They make journal entries and draw pictures of the different stages of the experiments.