Curated OER
"Conducting a Watershed Snapshot of Blockhouse Creek"
Learners examine specific skills in assessing water quality from a holistic approach. They assess the health of a local watershed and identify problems in the local watershed and suggest remediation.
Curated OER
Designing a Crew Exploration Vehicle
Take your class on an out-of-this-world adventure with this fun engineering design lesson. Working in small groups, young scientists design, build, and test crew exploration vehicles using some creativity, teamwork, and an assortment of...
Curated OER
Who Took Jerell's iPod? ~ An Organic Compound Mystery
Within the setting of a crime scene investigation, biochemistry beginners analyze organic compounds as a means of determining "Who dunnit." They use a brown paper test for lipids, glucose test strips and iodine to identify carbohydrates,...
Curated OER
A House is a House for Me
Young scholars evaluate the impact climates have on the building of structures. They research the different types of materials used to build houses in various climates and build small models of houses which are tested against different...
Science 4 Inquiry
The Last Supper: Identifying Macromolecules
Why do medical examiners always state the contents of a person's stomach? Scholars learn about the importance of macromolecules through a case study of stomach contents. They perform multiple tests to determine a conclusion before they...
Mission Valley Ambulance
The Crucible
Prepare readers of Arthur Miller's The Crucible for a timed, in-class essay assessment with seven graphic organizers that ask individuals to note conflicts, both internal and external, characters' actions, possible motives, and changes...
Virginia Department of Education
Writing Counterarguments
This activity is better utilized as a peer-editing exercise and not as an activity on how to write counterarguments. Writers take their argumentative rough drafts, peer edit in groups of four, and review the author on common essay...
Virginia Department of Education
The Writing Process for Expository Writing
Struggling on what steps to take in your expository essay lesson? Or confused on what to include for your scribes? This exercise in the process of expository writing provides concepts and structure for the educator on what the writers...
Virginia Department of Education
The Submarine
Submerge yourself in the study of slope. Scholars investigate a situation involving slope and the rate of change of a submarine. An additional example further explores the concept of slope by changing one of the conditions of the submarine.
Curated OER
Strategies for Organization and Elaboration of Personal Narrative
Personal narrative writing is usually a favorite form of writing for youngsters because they get to write about a personal experience. The lesson here asks pupils to take a piece of narrative writing and improve it by following...
Curated OER
Plagarism and Crediting Sources
Before the activity begins, the teacher writes a paragraph about a favorite toy from his/her childhood. The paragraph is read to the class, and each of the sentences are closely looked at for details and support of the topic sentence....
Virginia Department of Education
What Are the Chances?
Take a chance on an informative resource. Scholars conduct probability experiments involving coins and number cubes to generate data. Compiling class data helps connect experimental probability to theoretical probability.
Virginia Department of Education
Numbers in a Name
What's in a name? Pupils create a data set from the number of letters in the names of classmates. Each group then takes the data and creates a visual representation, such as a histogram, circle graph, stem-and-leaf plot, etc.
Curated OER
A Limnology Study of Drainage Ditches
Students chemically test water, observe microscopic organisms in the classroom, and screen the sample for macroinvertebrates. They design a reporting sheet that list all the items to be tested and a space to record the results.
Teach Engineering
The Grand Challenge: Fix the Hip Challenge
It may be time to get to know the skeletons in your family. The first instructional activity in a series of 5, introduces the class to the concept of osteoporosis. The class members brainstorm possible causes and whether the family...
DiscoverE
Design a Flotation Device
Save the soup! Scholars devise a flotation device using straws, balloons, foam, corks, and other objects. A can of soup must stay afloat for at least a minute with this device—your dinner might depend on it!
Virginia Department of Education
Line of Best Fit
Pupils work through a guided activity on fitting a linear equation to a set of data by entering the data into a calculator and trying to envision a line of best fit. They then have the calculator determine the least-squares line and...
Curated OER
9-12: The Movie, "A Civil Action," as a Legal/Environmental Science Case Study
Students analyze information to determine how they can help a community that has been affected by water contamination. In this environmental science lesson, students watch portions of the movie "A Civil Action" and discuss specific...
Curated OER
Here's an Instant Activity for February 16, 2004
Fourth graders complete a spelling activity that also improves their proofreading skills. In this spelling lesson, 4th graders read a list of words and proofread to find the word spelled correctly in each row.
Curated OER
Testing Soils for Garden Planting
Sixth graders collect soil samples and record the location of the samples by using GPS.
Brigham Young University
Socratic Seminar for Cold Sassy Tree
Tired of giving the same old multiple-choice tests, and have the urge for a new assessment? Then bring the precision of a Socratic seminar into your classroom. Even if you did not read Cold Sassy Tree the organization and explanation on...
Worchester Polytechnic Institute
Interactive Laboratory Activities for Secondary Education
Do you think the lab smells like rotten eggs? Sorry to hear about your sulfering. A set of five experiments covers many different topics including seasons, gravity, food, precipitation, and photosynthesis. Though not presented as a...
Curated OER
Get Smart
Students discuss the definition of intelligence and the possibility of measuring intelligence. They consider the elements of intelligence by reading and discussing the article "'Jeopardy' Millionaire is Smart, but Is He a Genius?They...
Curated OER
Is That Your Final Answer?
This unit on integers includes a pre-test, a post-test, four spreadsheets, and links to an interactive web-site to support the learning of integer operations. Access to computers and the Internet are imperative to this unit. The lessons...