Curated OER
Land Use Issues
Students examine living and non-living things in their environment. They identify trees, plants, and grasses in their neighborhood and those that originate in Illinois in this unit of lessons.
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Is It Alive?
First graders explore living things and their habitats. They create an original It's Alive! book to demonstrate what they have learned.
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It's Alive! Or is it?
Students differentiate the characteristics of living and nonliving things. In this life science lesson, students compare and contrast robots and living things. Given an object, they decide whether it's is living or not and defend their...
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What It Is, What It Isn't
Third graders classify and sort different types of beans to be introduced to the classification system in science. As a class, they identify the characteristics of living and non-living organisms and make a chart in their journal to ...
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Living and Non-Living
Students discover the basic needs of life. In this science lesson plan, students explore how all living things need air, water, food and shelter
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It's Alive
Students identify the differences between a nonliving and living thing. They describe what is needed for any living thing to survive. They create one page for the class book identifying why the object is a living thing.
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Investigation 2 - Greenhouses
Third graders set up a miniature greenhouse to help them explain how nonliving things affect the growth of living things.
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Characteristics of Living Things
Seventh graders identify the characteristics of living and non-living things. In this biology lesson, 7th graders define vocabulary words as they go through the lesson. They answer a crossword puzzle after class discussion.
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Interactions Everywhere!
Young scholars examine interactions within the environment and environmental engineering careers. They discuss and view photos of natural and manmade environments, explore various websites, create a web to identify interactions between...
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Living Systems Part III
Here is a fantastic, informative, interactive presentation on plant and animal cells. The PowerPoint is produced by an elementary school teacher who has a doctorate in science, and it shows! This would be a splendid presentation to use...
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Wetlands
Third graders examine how an ecosystem is a distinct community of interactive living and non-living things.
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Three Worm Lesson
Third graders observe properties of three worms. In this living and non-living lesson, 3rd graders study characteristics of living and non-living worms. Students experiment to find how light, heat and moisture effects each of the worms....
University of Southern California
Human Impact on the Sea
How far does the human hand reach? Five interactive lessons lead classes through a unit exploring the human impact on ocean resources, pollution, and even extinction. Learners discover how their decisions affect the ocean environment...
Captain Planet Foundation
Sorting Out Soils
Sift through soil and learn about why it's important for organic processes. After discussing what makes up soil, such as the living organisms and what types of soil have more nutrients, kids sample layers of mulch and deeper soil to...
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Plan, Do, Review...What's Bugging You?
Students explore insects through literacy, In this literacy lesson, students discover the characteristics of ladybugs and gain information from the text, "The Grouchy Ladybug". Students go on a "bug hunt".
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What Lives in Forests?
In this forest activity, students complete a graphic organizer by filling in 3 statements about what lives in a forest habitat.
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The Needs of Living Things
Students investigate the global food chain by creating a visual chart. For this ecology lesson, students discover the elements needed for life to sustain itself, contrasting living things vs. non living things. Students fill in a...
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What Makes a Dog a Dog
First graders recall and verbally list the parts of a dog, or a chosen subject, based on observations using the senses. They discriminate between living and non-living subjects, and create artistic representations of the parts of a dog.
Science Matters
Post-Assessment
Twenty questions make up an assessment designed to test super scientists' knowledge of ecosystems. Scholars answer multiple-choice and short-answer questions about organisms, food chains, energy flow, and more.
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Cricket Wars
Third graders explore living and nonliving things in a garden environment. In this garden environment instructional activity, 3rd graders study the effects of crickets in a garden. Students explore the interaction between living and...
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Wonderful Worms
Students identify living and non-living things and explain the importance of earthworms to the soil. They name some basic facts about earthworms, recognize basic worm vocabulary words and demonstrate vermicomposting techniques.
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Endangered Species
Students watch video clips of endangered animals. They imagine a small garden in front of a house and describe the living and non-living things that could interact to make up a garden eco-system.
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Soil, the Forgotten Resource
Students discuss soil understanding that is is often overlooked as a natural resource. In this science lesson, students recognize that we depend on it for energy in the form of foods. Students experiment with six boxes of soil to help in...
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IDENTIFYING AND SORTING BEARS
Students study the difference between living and nonliving bears by classifying pictures of bears and placing them on the appropriate posterboard. Given pictures of bears, students recognize types of bears by placing the pictures correctly.