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Students will explore global ocean surface currents by completing an investigation using real-world ocean drifter data. Students will analyze maps of ocean drifters to make observations about why they appear in some places more than others. Using the resources provided, they will then select a specific ocean drifter from an interactive map and predict where it may drift to, what currents it might be carried by, and where it might end up in a specific amount of time.

Type: Lesson Plan

Students are asked to evaluate several space suit designs and select the best design based on given data. Students work in collaborative groups to develop a procedure for selecting the best design and share their ideas with the rest of the class. A twist is introduced and the groups are challenged to test the validity of their procedure.

Model Eliciting Activities, MEAs, are open-ended, interdisciplinary problem-solving activities that are meant to reveal students’ thinking about the concepts embedded in realistic situations. Click here to learn more about MEAs and how they can transform your classroom.

Type: Lesson Plan

Professional Partiers, Inc. is having a difficult time setting a date for a client's Halloween party. The client has specific criteria they like would to have included in deciding on a good date. This project will familiarize students with the phases of the moon. It allows students an opportunity to interpret data from charts and collaborate with one another to provide a thoughtful written response for the company.

Model Eliciting Activities, MEAs, are open-ended, interdisciplinary problem-solving activities that are meant to reveal students’ thinking about the concepts embedded in realistic situations. MEAs resemble engineering problems and encourage students to create solutions in the form of mathematical and scientific models. Students work in teams to apply their knowledge of science and mathematics to solve an open-ended problem while considering constraints and tradeoffs. Students integrate their ELA skills into MEAs as they are asked to clearly document their thought processes. MEAs follow a problem-based, student-centered approach to learning, where students are encouraged to grapple with the problem while the teacher acts as a facilitator. To learn more about MEAs visit: https://www.cpalms.org/cpalms/mea.aspx

Type: Lesson Plan

This lesson should take place once a student is familiar with the scientific method and has previously participated in various science experiments. In this lesson, the students will work in small groups to design and carry out an experiment using common classroom materials.

Type: Lesson Plan

This Engineering Design Challenge is intended to help students apply the concepts of weathering and erosion as they build devices to stop beach erosion. It is not intended as an initial introduction to this benchmark.

Type: Lesson Plan

This Engineering Design Challenge is intended to help students apply the concepts of heat insulators as they build cube-coolers to slow the melting rate of ice. It is not intended as an initial introduction to this benchmark.

Type: Lesson Plan

This Engineering Design Challenge is intended to help students apply the concepts of pollination as they design an apparatus that will pollinate a field. It is not intended as an initial introduction to this benchmark.

In this Engineering Design Challenge, students will make a 2-dimensional model (a graphic illustration) rather than build a prototype.

Type: Lesson Plan

In this lesson the students will learn about a predator/prey relationship. They will learn about the role that plants and animals play in their ecosystem and what each role is called. The students will also learn about the limiting factors each ecosystem possesses that prevent any species population from becoming too large.

Type: Lesson Plan

Students will examine evidence of dinosaurs, from which students will write a theory. Their theory must be supported by evidence. Students will then present their theory for a class discussion.

Type: Lesson Plan

Water is essential for human health, but it can sometimes be contaminated. Water filtration can filter out contaminants and impurities making water much safer to consume. But what is the best way to filter water? Students will participate in a water filtration engineering challenge to try out different combinations of materials to find which works best. This lesson was developed by the Phillip and Patricia Frost Museum of Science with support from the Weo Foundation.

Type: Lesson Plan

In the lessons here, students exercise the observation skills that are essential to writing, visual art, and science. First, they try to use evocative language in describing pictures of birds from the Smithsonian's National Zoo. They go on to record observations and to make hypotheses as they follow the behavior of animals on the National Zoo's live webcams. They can watch the giant pandas, the tigers, the cheetahs, the gorillas, or any of a dozen other species.

Type: Lesson Plan

Through teacher demonstrations and lab type investigations done in rotations, students will explore magnets, magnetic materials, magnetic fields, and electromagnets.

Type: Lesson Plan

In this lesson, 4th grade students will use web-based articles and maps to look at current and potential air (wind) and water (hydro)power plants for their, or a teacher-given, local area. Students will present an argument for which type of renewable energy plant they believe would be best citing evidence from text(s) and/or map(s). Students may work and/or write in groups or individually. Access points are included for this lesson.

Type: Lesson Plan

Students correlate the weight and water displacement of various balls. They then apply their understanding to an additional situation. The task assesses students' abilities to make simple observations, collect data, make generalized inferences from their observations, and apply their understanding to an additional situation.

This task is designed to take students approximately 45 minutes to complete.

Type: Problem-Solving Task

Students conduct experiments that simulate fishing techniques and explore processes that result in bycatch.

Type: Teaching Idea

Students begin by reading Dr. Seuss' "The Lorax" as an example of how overdevelopment can cause long-lasting environmental destruction. Students discuss how to balance the needs of the environment with the needs of human industry.

Type: Teaching Idea

Students will explore how different colors absorb or reflect heat using a black can of water, a white can of water, and a plain can of water.

Type: Teaching Idea

Students will be divided into small groups to do simple science experiments that illustrate a type of weathering or erosion.

Type: Teaching Idea

Students will have an opportunity to work with sounds and learn about pitch, volume and how sound travels.

Type: Teaching Idea

Students will have an opportunity to go through the entire process of the scientific method using the game "Thumb Wars".

Type: Teaching Idea

In this unit, students will first do research and study the Law of Conservation of Mass and learn how to form a hypothesis. After they learn how to form a hypothesis, they will use balance beams to measure clay and crayons.

Type: Unit/Lesson Sequence

In this unit, students learn about various plants, their parts, their life cycles, and the importance of bees in plant reproduction.

Type: Unit/Lesson Sequence

In this unit, students learn about weathering and erosion (and different types of weathering and erosion) through different models and activities. An engineering design competition asks students to synthesize knowledge about erosion to create an erosion-blocking process/product for the Atlantic Coast.

Type: Unit/Lesson Sequence

In this unit, students learn the physical properties of rocks and how they are formed.

Type: Unit/Lesson Sequence

In this investigation, students will carefully look at four known household crystals. After observing and describing the crystals, students will be given an unknown crystal, which is chemically the same as one of the four known crystals but looks different. When students realize that they cannot identify this crystal by its appearance alone, they will suggest other tests and ways to compare the crystals to eventually identify the unknown crystal. The other activities in this investigation are examples of tests students can conduct on the crystals. After a series of these tests, students will gather enough evidence to identify the unknown crystal.

Type: Unit/Lesson Sequence

The students will identify the plant parts involved in reproduction, identify the animal (bee) structures involved in pollination, and demonstrate how pollen moves from the male stamen to the female stigma.

Type: Unit/Lesson Sequence

In this lesson students will learn about pollution and its effects. They will learn in depth about pesticides and see its harmful effects that they might not have realized at first. The students will simulate a landfill and see what objects will decompose and which objects won't. They will create their own solutions to an oil spill and test to see which solution is the most effective. The students will observe the effects oil has on water birds. Through this they will determine the long term damage done by an oil spill.

Type: Unit/Lesson Sequence

This game is designed to test students' knowledge of math and science.

Type: Video/Audio/Animation