Berkshire Museum
Nature Journaling: Experience the Outdoors Through Writing and Drawing
Step into the great outdoors and develop young scientists' skills of observation with a nature journaling lesson. Given a specific focus or goal, children practice making and recording observations of nature through written descriptions...
Curated OER
Reading and Writing about the Solar System
A superb interdisciplinary approach highlights this lesson which incorporates space science knowledge and narrative skills. After reading The Magic School Bus, two excellent poems, and watching a video, all about our solar system, young...
Curated OER
Habitat Project Digital Science Journal
In this habitat project digital science journal instructional activity, students use a digital camera or camcorder to create a science journal about a habitat they have studied. This page includes links to helpful web resources for...
Curated OER
Summarizing From Notes (Part 1): Nature Journals Of Lewis And Clark
In this writing worksheet, students fill out an outline about a plant that will lead them to writing a 3-paragraph summary. Students include a topic sentence and 4-5 details for each paragraph.
Berkshire Museum
Adopt a Schoolyard Tree
Help young scientists connect with nature and learn about trees with a fun life science lesson. Heading out into the school yard, children choose a tree to adopt, taking measurements, writing descriptions, and drawing sketches of it in...
Curated OER
The BEAM Project: Building Efficient Architectural Models
Technology or engineering teams are given a task to design, construct, and test the efficiency of a structure that will foster an even temperature throughout an entire sunny day. Intended as a long-term project, pupils research, plan,...
Penguin Books
The Omnivore’s Dilemma, Young Readers Edition
As the saying goes, you are what you eat. A useful set of lesson plans encourage young readers to take a second look at their eating habits. Pre- and post-reading questions bring in reflective writing and discussion while extension...
American Museum of Natural History
Planetary Mysteries
A website all about planetary mysteries—it's a one-stop-shop for all things, stars, planets, and space travel. Scholars read an astronomy overview to discover the page's big ideas, then choose from the plethora of resources, including...
Curated OER
Eggs'ceptional Experiments
Students see evidence of chemical reaction and follow the scientific method to hypothesize, observe, and reach conclusions. They conduct a series of egg based experiments such as forming crystals and complete journal activities as a...
Intel
Starquest
Almost every ancient culture observed the stars and saw pictures in the patterns. Studying stars allowed them to guide travelers, determine when to plant crops, when to harvest food, and the stories surrounding the images include some of...
Tuscaloosa County School System
National Flat Lorax Project - AP Environmental Science
Whether it's Earth Day or another average school day, there are always ways we can protect our planet. An environmental science project combines The Lorax by Dr. Seuss and the Flat Stanley Project to create an innovative...
Cornell Lab of Ornithology
Amazing Birds
What's so amazing about birds? Find out just how amazing birds are with a physics of animal behavior unit created by Cornell Lab of Ornithology. Have learners explore and tap into their observational skills and notice how birds fly, what...
Curated OER
Water Cycle - A SiteMaker Presentation
Have your young scientists explore a single element of the water cycle and write a report to explain findings. Your class can take their writing through all the steps of the writing process and publish it using a Web-based multimedia...
California Academy of Science
A Day inthe Life of a San Francisco Native Animal
Although the lesson is specifically about the San Francisco Bay area, it's good enough to be adapted to any local region. Children research what the landscape in San Francisco was like prior to settlement, they consider the types of...
Curated OER
Have a Backone
Students create a visual organizer that describes different groups of vertebrates in this pre-writing activity. They view and discuss a video on descriptive writing and then form small groups to research vertebrate classes using the...
Curated OER
Observation Skills
First graders observe a spider and write sentences about what they see the spider doing. In this writing lesson plan, 1st graders draw what they see, then make an edible spider out of marshmallows and twizzlers. A fun, delicious lesson...
Curated OER
Build a Journal
Students prepare for field journaling at Yosemite Institute. They create and decorate their Institute journal giving them both a place to journal and ownership of it.
Curated OER
Writing About Estuaries
Young scholars use the internet to research an aspect of interest to them about the Tijuana Estuary. After the unit on the estuary is completed, they reflect on their experiments and thoughts in a paper. They also participate in a field...
Curated OER
E.T. Write Home
Students read the book, The Magic School Bus Lost in the Solar System, and discuss the planets visited by the characters in the book. They write journal entries from the viewpoint of E.T., writing letters home describing his travels in...
Curated OER
Energy Conservation
Students explore the topic of energy conservation. They identify energy sources, complete a chart and a questionnaire, and write two paragraphs summarizing the lesson information and ways to conserve energy.
Curated OER
Waste Management
High schoolers explore the topic of waste management. They define key vocabulary words, take a pre-quiz, complete a questionnaire, evaluate their own waste reduction habits, and write a short summary.
Curated OER
Oceans and Coasts
Students explore the topic of marine pollution. They define key vocabulary words, list examples of marine pollution, complete a true/false handout, read an article, and participate in a class discussion.
Curated OER
Air Pollution
Students explore the topic of air pollution. They complete a KWL chart, answer discussion questions, and define key vocabulary terms.