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Warm and Toasty
Students are introduced to the concepts of specific heat and heat capacity. In groups, they design an experiment to test these two topics on various fabrics. They compare and contrast the amount of heat loss on the different materials...
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Harvesting Oil from the Earth
Fourth graders research sources of fossil fuels especially oil while determining how scientists take core samples from an Earth model. They look at oil consumption and production in the US and throughout the world.
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Strawkets and Thrust
Students investigate the effect of thrust on rocket flight. They construct two paper rockets, one with a smaller exit nozzle, and compare/contrast the distances traveled by the rockets.
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Sky and Cloud Windows
Learners monitor the weather, clouds, and sky. For this weather lesson, students create a sky and cloud window to focus their sky observations. They write observations in a notebook and include the date, time, cloud cover, types of...
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Energy Production
Students examine the role of energy in our daily lives, and how energy is produced. Students discuss the advantages and disadvantages of each energy resource, and the controversy surrounding the use of nuclear energy.
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Energy Production
Students examine the role of energy in our daily lives, and how energy is produced. Students discuss the advantages and disadvantages of each energy resource, and the controversy surrounding the use of nuclear energy.
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A River Ran Through It
Students research how water is used to generate electricity. They investigate water's potential-to-kinetic energy transfer in hands-on activities about falling water and waterwheels. They take measurements, calculate averages and graph...
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Solar Power
Students discover how engineers use solar energy to heat buildings. They investigate the thermal properties of different materials. They evaluate the usefulness of each material.
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What's down there?
learners analyze how oil is formed and where in the Earth we find it. Students take a core sample to look for oil in a model of the Earth. They analyze their sample and make an informed decision as to whether or not they should "drill...
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Learn to Build a Rocket in 5 Days or Your Money Back
Young scholars discover the entire process that goes into designing a rocket for any customer. They study important factors such as supplies, ethics, deadlines and budgets. Also, students explore about the Engineering process, and...
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Waterwheel Work
Young scholars investigate the history of the waterwheel and common uses for water turbines today. They construct an experimental waterwheel using a two-liter plastic bottle, measure the rate of revolution of a waterwheel, and complete...
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Locating Vent Fields Using CTD Data
Students describe the way hydrothermal vents work. Students work on locating vent regions through remote collection of data about water temperature and density. Comparing density and temperatures graphs, students search for indicators...
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How Long Does Trash Last
Students work in cooperative groups to estimate how long trash lasts in a landfill. They study environmental consequences of not recycling and use graph-making software to create a graph that illustrates the lifespan of trash items...
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Solids, Liquids, and Gases
First graders explore the properties of matter. In this states of matter lesson, 1st graders conduct scientific investigations that require them to mix, cool, and heat objects in order to observe changes in the properties of matter.
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Visual Models of Solutions and Concentrations
Students model solutions with beakers of colored glass or plastic spheres. In this solutions lesson, students use beakers of colored spheres to represent pure substances. They mix the spheres to demosntrate solutions. They discuss...
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Tree Identification
Students list four ways to identify trees. In this tree identification instructional activity, students use tree identification techniques such as leafs, bark, wood grain, soil type, and climate to create tables and graphs.
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Balance Point
In this math/science instructional activity, students find the balance point of a variety of objects, and complete ten problems. Students look at sketches of objects and calculate the balance point, and also use meter sticks and weights....
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How Things Fly
Students research the mechanics of flight and create a slideshow with one slide dedicated to each of these topics: lift, drag, thrust, and weight. They create a short quiz regarding the material that they presented and give it to their...
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Our Solar System
Third graders describe the composition of our solar system. They recognize the names of the planets in our solar system and compare and contrast the nine planets that orbit the sun.
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Classifying Matter
Second graders conduct investigations to explore matter. In this states of matter instructional activity, 2nd graders complete four activities to analyze the three states of matter. Students analyze the properties of solids, liquids, and...
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Using Star Charts and Maps
Students study star charts and describe locations of objects. In this scientific models lesson students use coordinates and identify characteristics.
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Population Dynamics
Students discover how organisms are dependent on one another for survivial. They also discuss how to conserve natural resources. They compare and contrast the different types of symbiotic relationships as well.
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Structure of the Earth
Eighth graders explain the difference between igneous, sedimentary and metamorphic rocks. They identify the stages in the rock cycle. They discover the origin of rocks as well.
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Strength of Water
Students perform experiments using flexible bottles of water and eyedroppers partially filled and placed in the bottle. They record what happens when they tighten the bottle lid and squeeze the bottle.