Teach Engineering
Magnetic Materials
The design challenge: develop a method to separate steel from aluminum. The first lesson plan in an eight-part series introduces the class to the grand challenge of ciming up with a method to streamline a sorting process at a recycling...
Oklahoma State Department of Education
Narrative Prompt
Reading about history is nothing like experiencing it firsthand. Encourage your eighth graders to do the next best thing with a historical narrative prompt, in which they describe the experience of a first-time traveler on the...
Virginia Department of Education
Molar Heat of Fusion for Water
How can you describe heat of fusion in a way the class understands and relates the importance of this concept to present day issues? In this third lesson of the series, learners conduct an experiment, demonstrating the flow of heat...
Mascil Project
Parachute Food Drop
Drop a perfect project into your lesson plans. Groups use different building materials to create models of parachutes for food drops. After testing out their prototypes, they make improvements to their designs.
Curated OER
Understanding Newton's Laws
In this physics learning exercise, students investigate Newton's Three Laws. In this multiple choice, matching, and short answer learning exercise, student answer eleven questions.
Curated OER
Swinging Observations
Students build a pendulum type swinging apparatus and make specific and selective observations using what they know about scientific observations. They look for regularities of movement, patterns, and systemic changes over time.
Curated OER
Primary Lessons for Grades K-2
Students study wildlife and identify similarities and differences between their home and wild environments. In this wildlife lesson plan, students make connections between wildlife and wildlife habitats. Students then build knowledge...
Curated OER
Life Without Flight
Students keep a journal for an intire week recording their observations of the ways aircraft affect society, The students discuss their findings and categorize them into areas such as military, commercial, research, and so on.
Curated OER
Watershed Management
Students investigate the concept of a watershed. They conduct research into the concept using a variety of resources. Students take a field trip to a local watershed to make observations. The outcome is a report concerning the outside...
Curated OER
Work
Students identify productive resources. In this economics instructional activity, students read the book Charlie Needs a Cloak and discuss productive resources the character used in the book. Students participate in a simulated factory...
Curated OER
Listening to the Prairie
Students, in groups, visit an exhibit and for a prairie scavenger hunt to locate sunflowers and name products made from them. After sketching a prairie dog, they find nature cues farmers use when growing plants and raising animals. The...
Curated OER
Natural Selection
Students practice calculating allele and genotype frequencies in the framework of a simple simulation using hard candy, calculators, and a worksheet. This lesson includes a three-page worksheet and an assessment question for conclusion.
Curated OER
Arsenic Contamination: Natural Disaster or Human Induced?
Students list as a class the sources of arsenic contamination of water. They describe the major health effects of arsenic contamination in a letter. Students identify the regions that are affected by it.
Curated OER
Where is Everyone Going?
Young scholars conduct an experiment. In this emergency response lesson, students watch videos about hurricanes and discuss the difference between natural disasters and man-made disasters. Young scholars perform a hurricane...
Curated OER
Worksheet 15 Computer Lab
In this math learning exercise, students discuss the natural frequency ω0 of the system and how it is the number of oscillations of the spring in 2π units of time.
Curated OER
Solar System
Eighth graders identify the basic concepts of celestial bodies. They discover the difference between perihelion and aphelion and demonstrate how the universe is expanding. They also discover how gravity and centrifugal force are...
Curated OER
Principles of Flight
High schoolers explore the principles of flight. In this flight activity, students construct a model plane and investigate the forces acting on the flier. They will measure the thrust and calculate the stored energy.
Curated OER
Friction and Gravity
Seventh graders identify the factors that determine the strength of the friction forces when two objects push against each other. Describing the difference between weight and mass, they participate in experiments. They state the law of...
Curated OER
One Survivor Remembers: Twenty Pounds
Students explore a Holocaust survivor's story. In this Holocaust lesson plan, students consider the emotions Jews forced from their homes might have experienced. Students discuss 2 scenarios that involve picking up and leaving one's home...
Curated OER
Black Hawk Island Hike
Students explore Wisconsin's natural and cultural history through hands-on exploration of Upham Woods. They are shown the basic paddling skills and they work in teams to paddle across the river on barge. Students describe cultural...
Curated OER
Newton's Theory of Universal Gravitation
Students explore how Newton tied together the gravity observed on Earth and the motion of the Moon. They apply an earlier lesson about centripetal forces.
Curated OER
Life Along the Ring of Fire
Students research geological forces that create the Ring of Fire and its effects on cultures. They write reports on how natural disasters influence societies.
Curated OER
Global Temperatures
Students analyze the global temperature record from 1867 to the present. Long-term trends and shorter-term fluctuations are both evaluated. The data is examined for evidence of the impact of natural and anthropogenic climate forcing...
Curated OER
Energy
Students see that energy is everywhere in nature - in the light of the sun, in wind, in falling water and erupting volcanoes. Without energy, there is no life. This lesson provides many good ideas across the curriculum to study energy.