Curated OER
The Debate Over Teaching Intelligent Design
Students explain the current nationwide debate regarding the teaching of intelligent design alongside evolution in public schools. They examine the content of the debate and then analyze and critique the merits and flaws of both sides of...
Curated OER
What about Continental Drift?
Fifth graders research the Continental Drift by researching for evidence of continental movement. The teaching explains the theory of plate tectonics and the Earth's magnetic field. They conclude the instructional activity by watching...
Science 4 Inquiry
The Ins and Outs of Photosynthesis
The most important chemical process on Earth is photosynthesis. Scholars explore the changes in the gases in our atmosphere as life on Earth developed. They create a model of photosynthesis and consider simple questions.
ARKive
Adaptations for Movement
What animals are best suited for moving around a rainforest, or a desert? Design your own animal species based on a particular habitat, focusing on the characteristics it will need for optimal movement. Great as a group lesson or...
Curated OER
How Did Humans Evolve?
Learners complete an online activity in which they examine fossils to find possible hominid family trees.
Curated OER
The Selection and Variation in the Egyptian Origami Bird
Students participate in a contrived natural selection simulation in which they build and modify simple paper airplanes. They study divergent and convergent evolution and how it is isolated in sub-populations.
Curated OER
Use of the Forest in the Economic Evolution of Oakville, Pennsylvania
Pupils explore forest usage and the ways which it affected the development of Oakville. They identify the technological advances that shaped forest based industries, and the current challenges facing the community of Oakville.
Echoes & Reflections
Nazi Germany
The Holocaust was an evolution of anti-Semitism, scapegoating, and targeted violence against Jews with Nazi policies. A resource unpacks the escalation in violence, along with the erosion of democratic institutions, during the 1930s....
Curated OER
Creative Ways To Teach Evolutionary Concepts
High schoolers explore evolutionary concepts in cartoons and lab activities. They describe and explain evolutionary concepts featured in a cartoon and participate in laboratory activities.
Curated OER
History Theory of Evolution
Young scholars identify fossils. They identify evidence of change over time when given pictures of fossils to determine the proper sequencing. In addition, they determine evolutionary relationships by comparing embryonic structures.
Curated OER
Evolution
Students illustrate the results of natural selection by identifying the specific adaptation of an organism that allows the species to survive in that environment. They illustrate the results of natural selection by recognizing examples...
Curated OER
Music Theories
Explore the inception and evolution of hip-hop music as a springboard for writing music reviews and researching other genres of music. Learners will read and discuss the Times' article, From Underground Music to Fashion Statement to then...
Curated OER
Properties of Ionic and Covalent Compounds
Test six various reagents for their ability to conduct electricity. Cooperating chemists research whether each is ionic or covalent and discover the relationship between bonding and conductivity. This laboratory exercise would be an...
NASA
Two Versions of Gravity: Newton and Einstein
We have all heard the debate about teaching both theories, but an innovative activity takes the discussion to a new level. Scholars research and debate Newton's Law of Gravitation versus Einstein's General Theory of Relativity with...
Curated OER
You Say You Want an Evolution?
Students estimate the number of living organisms they might find in their local environment. After researching the types of organisms that existed during various geologic time periods, students describe how life forms have changed over...
It's About Time
Natural Selection
Are you the predator or the prey? Student groups participate in an activity to demonstrate the process of natural selection in a contained environment. After scholars complete the activity and questions, they apply their knowledge to a...
Howard Hughes Medical Institute
Look Who's Coming for Dinner: Selection by Predation
What happens when a new predator comes to town? Learners analyze an experiment that studies the effect of predation on selection. They use real data to draw conclusions about the impact a new predator has on a prey species.
Howard Hughes Medical Institute
How Do Fibers Form?
The proteins inside a cell determine the shape of the cell. While most red blood cells have a circular shape, those with sickle cell take the shape of a sickle. This change in shape causes multiple issues in the system. Scholars solve...
Curated OER
Investigating Evolutionary Questions: Bats, Whales, Reptiles, Birds, Animal Classification
Students are guided through a process in which three questions are addressed by retrieving beta hemoglobin sequences from online databases, and using online tools to compare those sequences in student-selected animals.
Curated OER
Becoming Whales: Experiencing Discoveries of
High schoolers experience, through a "dig," the historical discovery of fossils which increasingly link whales to earlier land-dwelling mammals. They encounter the intermediate forms which show changes that lead to the modern whale.
Curated OER
Natural Selection.... a Cumulative Process... it's in the cards!
Students working in pairs attempt to produce a full sequence of 13 cards of one suit (ace - to king). This must be done by shuffling the suit of cards for each round, then checking the cards.
Curated OER
The Cytochrome-C Lab
Students examine a method biologists use to try to determine relationships. They examine how amino acid sequences have been determined for a number of proteins, and how scientists can make inferences about DNA based on the amino acid...
Curated OER
Making Cladograms
Students construct cladograms (evolutionary trees), showing how shared derived characters can be used to reveal degrees of relationship. They interpret and analyze cladograms, and determine where unclassified vertebrates would fit on a...
Curated OER
The Great Fossil Find - Reconstructing the Pieces
Students go on an imaginary fossil hunt. They follow a script read by the teacher, students "find" (remove from envelope) paper "fossils" of some unknown creature. They attempt to reconstruct fossil pieces into an animal.