Smarter Balanced
How the Brain Works
Cerebrum, cerebellum, brainstem, pituitary gland, and spinal cord. Prepare your class for a performance task assessment on the brain and how it works with a scripted plan that defines these terms and identifies the functions the...
Curated OER
The Brain’s Inner Workings
Do you want to learn about how you learn? Help pupils become the best learners they can be by teaching them how their brain works. The resources available include videos about brain structure and a study guide full of activities that...
Curated OER
Mapping the Brain
A virtual 3-D tour leads high schoolers to developing icons representing the function of various parts of the brain. These icons are then used to label hand-drawn maps of the brain. A worksheet, assessment, and detailed procedures are...
Curated OER
Brain Breaks to Liven Up the School Day!
Short brain breaks increase engagement and encourage teamwork in elementary, middle school, and even high school classrooms.
University of Minnesota
Memory Items
Ready to have an "unforgettable" time in science class? Try a fun and insightful activity, suitable for a wide age group of learners. Explore how human memory works when pupils try to remember objects they've seen before comparing the...
Curated OER
Mind Over Matter: How Does the Brain Work
Students research previous attempts by scientists to discover the ways in which the brain works, design and conduct an experiment to illustrate current research and present their findings to the class.
Curated OER
How To Make a Mummy
In this How To Make a Mummy activity, students make an instruction manual for an embalmer in ancient Egypt. Student complete this by arranging 8 pages in the correct order and adding illustrations. The activity also includes 2 extension...
American Museum of Natural History
Trip Up Your Brain
Sometimes different parts of the brain disagree. See what this disagreement looks like using a remote learning resource to experience how brains often take shortcuts. Pupils complete the activity, observe their results, and then read...
Curated OER
Brain Buzz: Effects of Caffeine, Nicotine, Alcohol and Drugs on Learning
Students understand how the brain functions and how they can promote a healthy lifestyle. In this health lesson students complete several activities including investigating how stimulates affect the brain.
Kenan Fellows
Unit 4: The Brain
Drugs interact with the brain to alter moods, emotions, and behaviors by changing the brain's chemistry, perceptions, and interactions. The final lesson in the Pharmacology unit shows scholars experiments, has them complete four labs,...
Baylor College
Crossing the Synaptic Gap
As part of a unit on the chemistry of the brain, thinkers learn how chemicals work to transmit messages between individual neurons and how controlled substances impact the synaptic cleft. They do so by playing a dice-and-card game in...
Curated OER
Brain and Senses
Students investigate the brain through multiple senses. In this biology lesson, students experiment with different activities involving taste, memory, touch, and sight to understand how the brain works. Students work in partners and...
Scholastic
Study Jams! The Nervous System
Get your class thinking with animations of neurons in action and explanations of how stimuli is transported and processed. This film makes an ideal introduction or review of the nervous system. The parts of the brain and what they...
American Museum of Natural History
Optical Illusions and How They Work
Illusions are what your mind makes them. Learners view several optical illusions. After each illusion the resource describes what is seen and the potential connection to evolution of the brain. Illusions include seeing different objects...
PBS
Stories of Painkiller Addiction: The Brain on Autopilot
For some people, the force of addiction can be as biologically compelling as the drive for food or water. High schoolers watch a video segment about Ryan, a recovering addict, and learn more about how opioids and other drugs can affect...
Curated OER
How to Improve Eye Tracking to Make Reading Easier
Children with dyslexia may have issues with their eye tracking ability and this may cause problems when they read. Here is a set of three easy steps you can use to improve a learner's eye tracking. The idea is that some kids need help in...
Curated OER
Come to Your Senses
Students explore their senses. For this biology lesson plan, students will learn about their senses, what affects them, and how the brain works to control our senses in a series of lab activities.
Curated OER
Understanding Alzheimer's Disease
Learners examine what experts have discovered so far about Alzheimer's. They explore how the brain works, and how it changes as we age. They discover things they should do - or not do - to keep their brains healthy.
Scholastic
The Science of Marijuana—How THC Affects the Brain
Marijuana can affect every part of a user's life—starting with the delicate nervous centers of the brain. An informative article and worksheet prompt teenagers to learn more about how the THC found in most forms of marijuana can...
Curated OER
Phineas Gage: The Teenage Brain and Connections: Free Choice Activity
During this lesson, which is all about making connections, learners watch a documentary about the teenage brain and connect it to Phineas Gage: A Gruesome but True Story About Brain Science, their own lives, and the world.
Curated OER
What's in a Brain?
Bring the brain to life for your students with thought-provoking activities
Curated OER
Animal Brains
Do big bodies make big brains? Let your learners decide whether there is an association between body weight and brain weight by putting the data from different animals into a scatterplot. They can remove any outliers and then make a line...
EngageNY
Close Reading: Excerpt 5 of “The Digital Revolution and the Adolescent Brain Evolution”
Class members consider how technology affects social interactions as they continue reading an article about the digital revolution and adolescent brain development. Then, working in pairs, scholars answer text-dependent questions and...
Missouri Department of Elementary
How I Act Is Who I Am
A lesson centers itself around the topic of family roles. A whole-class discussion uses puppets and posters to go in-depth into the following character traits; caring, responsibility, respect, and cooperation. The discussion closes with...