Berkeley Engineering and Mentors
Marshmallow Catapaults
After a brief lecture on levers, torque, projectiles, and the five-step engineering design cycle, young physical science learners or engineers build catapults out of craft sticks. This is an open-ended exploration of what works and what...
Curated OER
Changing Seasons
Explore expository writing and using precise language in this descriptive paragraph writing instructional activity. Learners brainstorm prior knowledge about the changing seasons in Ohio. They describe seasonal items, view seasonal...
Curated OER
Water Cycling in the Wilderness: Alaska quarter reverse
The Alaskan wilderness contains every imaginable element of the water cycle: it has flowing streams, cool spring rain, and frozen glaciers. Pupils use a series of worksheets to identify and define evaporation, condensation, and...
Curated OER
Tides - The Ins and Outs of Tides
Get your junior oceanographers to generate tidal prediction graphs on an interactive website. They will feel like experts in the field, or shall we say, experts in the ocean! This is a brief, but worthwhile activity that could be used to...
AAAS
Wildflower Garden
Take your blooming botanists on a spring walk without activating any allergies with a wildflower WebQuest. The link to the "Spring Wildflower Walk" is broken, but the correct link is attached here. You could also try the activity in the...
Curated OER
Fall vs. Spring
Learners learn about fall and spring by engaging in hands-on activities in order to fulfill science and language arts standards. In this lesson on seasons, students first listen to a story about fall, discuss the characteristics of the...
Curated OER
What is a Seed?
Students share experiences they have had with different types of seeds. After being read a story, they are given a lima bean in which they split apart and examine the inside. To end the lesson, they share their own ideas on how they...
Curated OER
Ethics Issues From Science Fiction
Students analyze ethics issues as they read science fiction works. In this science and ethics lesson, students read science fiction short stories of their choosing, investigate the ethics issues raised in the stories, and present...
Curated OER
Flood Control: Environmental History
Learners examine the painting, Spring on the Missouri. They role-play and discuss floods and flood control from the views of an environmental lobbyist and a farmer.
Curated OER
Puffin Patrol
Bird diversity and the majestic puffin are the topics of today's lesson. Children discuss and look at images of puffins, and then they use felt to put a puffin body together. After that they talk about what and how puffins eat. They get...
Curated OER
Nuclear Science: Understanding the Development and Control of Nuclear Energy
Students comprehend the Development and control of Nuclear Energy. They analyze the historical significance of the atomic age through use of primary documents. Students examines nuclear energy from the perspective of physical sciences.
Curated OER
Dinosaurs
Second graders use the internet to find information about dinosaurs. Using the information, they complete a database with where the dinosaurs lived, diet, and where bones were found. To end the lesson, they are given criteria and review...
Curated OER
Kindergarteners Study the Four Seasons
Examine the weather of the four seasons, look at seasonal activities, and tell which months are part of each season with this lesson. Your class will play a game, sing a song, and write additional stanzas to seasonal poetry.
Curated OER
Investigating Properties of Water: Temperature
Investigate how temperature affects the density of water and stratification that occurs in bodies of water when temperatures vary. Water of differing temperatures is given different colors to see the layers that form. The lesson is meant...
Curated OER
Magnets and Springs
Students participate in an online lesson making and recording observations of magnets. They determine that magnets attract some metals but not others and that other materials are not attracted to magnets.
Curated OER
Challenger's Lost Lessons - The Lost Simple Machines Lesson
Students investigate the characteristics of simple machines. In this simple machine lesson, students investigate work as a product of applying constant force. They answer questions about what happens on Earth and what may have happened...
Curated OER
Weather Conditions During the Spring Monarch Migration
Students keep detailed weather records during the spring migration of the monarch butterfly. To keep track of the weather, students utilyze weather reports and instuments such as anemometers, compasses, thermometers and rain gauges.
Curated OER
Matter
First graders are read a story about the various stages of matter with a focus on gases. Using a ziploc bag, they capture as much air as possible and discuss how it takes up space even though it is invisible. To end the lesson plan, they...
Curated OER
Weather and Water in Ghana
Students research the rainy and dry season to investigate Africa's weather. In this African weather lesson, students use the given websites to research the rainy and dry seasons of Ghana in Africa. Students then read stories about life...
Curated OER
Ohm's Law
If your future physicists know how to construct simple circuits, include resistors, and use a multi-meter to measure voltage, then you might employ this instructional activity on Ohm's law. Each lab group investigates the relationships...
Curated OER
Costa Rica's Sustainable Coffee
Students experiment to see if birds prefer to eat bird seed with additives vs. no additives. In this experimental lesson students test to see if birds notice a difference between additive and no additive food.
Curated OER
Determining A Spring Constant
Students determine a spring constant and extrapolate information from a graph. In this spring lesson students divide into groups and complete a lab activity.
Curated OER
A'planting We will Go
Germination is an amazing process that results in amazing things. The book The Tiny Seed is the inspiration for a set of activities that will help build early literacy, observation, language, and writing skills. The class observes how...
Virginia Department of Education
The Rate of Motion
How much time does it take to jump over three balloons? Pupils calculate the speed of tasks that require different motions. They determine motions for tasks such as walking, skipping, hopping, and jumping before creating a spreadsheet...