Space Awareness
How Light Pollution Affects the Stars: Magnitude Readers
Did you know light can decrease visibility? Light pollution absolutely makes it more difficult to see stars. Scholars build a simple magnitude reader to determine the magnitude of stars. They use these data to estimate the impact of...
Space Awareness
Meet Our Neighbors: Sun
The sun isn't just a ball of yellow! Young scientists learn about the features of the sun using a hands-on modeling activity. They build models of the sun using common household items to represent sunspots, solar prominence, and the...
Curated OER
Coffee & Chocolate: Knowing Healthy Foods
An article relaying vital information about health and nutrition are the backbone of this lesson on eating the right foods. A series of activities are used to help upper graders understand the science supporting our understanding of what...
Curated OER
Crayon Resist
Kids usually love crayon resist projects. It is so fascinating for them to see how the dark paint accentuates and resists the waxy crayon. Here are instructions for executing a crayon resist project of your own. Tip: Make the project fit...
Curated OER
Seed Germination
Students germinate a Mung Bean seed. In this seed lesson students conduct an experiment germinating a Mung Bean. They apply three different treatments to the seeds: dry, moist, and underwater incubation.
Curated OER
Tree Birthdays
Students investigate the growth of trees. For this tree growth lesson, students discover that trees make a ring each year they live. Students use new voabulary such as bark, phloem, and cambuim to talk about tree parts. Students create a...
Curated OER
Animal Adaptations
Fifth graders discover the adaptation of species through analyzing pictures. In this scientific discovery lesson, 5th graders discuss the concept of adaptation in order for survival. Students view many images of extinct animals and...
Curated OER
Greenhouse Effect: A Computer Simulation
Students complete an online simulation of the greenhouse effect. In this instructional activity on the greenhouse effect, students use a website, similar to a webquest, to simulate and answer questions on how the greenhouse effect works....
Curated OER
the Journey of the Pacific Salmon in the Open Ocean and Fishing
Third graders discuss salmon and their life cycle. In this salmon life cycle lesson, 3rd graders recognize the difficulties researching the life cycle of salmon as they migrate. Students conduct an experiment and create a game.
Curated OER
Under Our Feet
Students investigate the forest ecosystem to learn of the living and non-living elements of the soil. In this ecosystem lesson, students examine soil for twigs, moss, fungi, leaves, roots and other matter. Students complete a...
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Earth Energy Budget Pre Lab
Students explore energy by conducting an in class experiment. In this climate change lesson, students conduct a water vapor experiment in a soda bottle. Students utilize graphs and charts to analyze the results of the experiment and help...
Curated OER
Cave Diagram
Students examine limestone cave geology and hydology. They study cave vocabulary.
Curated OER
Glaciers Worksheet #2
A map of the Hudson River Valley is exhibited here. Arrows representing glacial striations are spread across the map for learners to analyze. They answer five multiple choice questions in response. The worksheet is a compact review of...
Curated OER
Cave Stories - Tales of Adventure
Students list three things about caves that interest them and list reasons why writers choose caves as settings for stories.
Curated OER
Tree Cookies
Students identify heartwood, sapwood, and a tree's annual rings, infer from a tree's rings what damage or stress might have occurred in its life, and make a time-line of human history that coincides with a tree's rings.
Curated OER
Tree-ring Dating
Students complete activity sheets and participate in discussions while they study dendrochronology. They determine a tree's age and recognize how the climate varied over time.
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Elodea Lab
Young scholars observe the changes between elodea leaves placed in darkness and light. For this life science lesson, students experiment to find evidence of photosynthesis in elodea leaves. Young scholars use indicators to detect the...
Curated OER
Camping/Catching Fireflies
Young scholars create glow in the dark simulated lightning bug jars after reading stories about fireflies.
American Museum of Natural History
Journey to the Stars
Fifteen detailed pictures and informative captions delve deep into the exploration of stars—their life cycle and importance in the universe.
Curated OER
Exploring the Night Sky: Summer
Students explain how moon phases occur. They describe and explain at least two common misconceptions that people have about the moon. Students explain what a star is. They explain 3 ways that the night sky has been used throughout history.
Curated OER
Rainbow Electrophoresis Lab
Young scholars are introduced to the principles of gel electrophoresis. They practice loading gels and pipetting. In this laboratory activity, food color is separated into constituent pigments. The lab can be run with standard...
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Lightning in a Jar
Students create lightning with two common objects and observe the colorful "discharge" of electrons on a smaller scale. By exploring the phenomena of static electricity, students relate their knowledge to the real-life weather phenomena...
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Global Warming: Life in a Greenhouse
Students investigate the evidence and consequences of global warming. They read and discuss an article, conduct a debate, evaluate their community's climate statistics, log their gas consumption for a week, and develop a panel discussion...
Curated OER
Solar S’Mores
Learners use the energy of the sun to make s'mores. In this solar energy lesson, students gather the listed materials and follow the procedures to find out if they can make s'mores using solar energy.