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Students will test the solubility of different items used in packing. Based on their observations, the student will explain which of the materials would be least harmful to the environment. The task assesses students' ability to make simple observations and make generalized inferences from their observations

Type: Formative Assessment

Students will be working in teams of four to measure the rebound heights of a tennis ball dropped from four different heights. Students will be investigating with the bouncing balls to measure changes in the type of energy they possess.

Type: Formative Assessment

Students determine the relative amounts of oils in food. They then apply their understanding to an additional situation. The task assesses students' abilities to make simple observations, make generalized inferences from their observations, and apply their understanding to an additional situation.

Type: Formative Assessment

This is lesson 3 of 3 in the Goldilocks’ Café Just Right unit. This lesson focuses on systematic investigation on getting a cup of coffee to be the “just right” temperature and turbidity level. Students will use both the temperature probe and turbidity sensor and code using ScratchX during their investigation.

Type: Lesson Plan

This is lesson 2 of 3 in the Just Right Goldilocks’ Café unit. This lesson focuses on systematic investigation on getting a cup of coffee to be the “just right” level of turbidity. Students will use turbidity sensors and code using ScratchX during their investigation.

Type: Lesson Plan

This is lesson 1 of 3 in the Just Right Goldilocks’ Café unit. This lesson focuses on systematic investigation on getting a cup of coffee to be the “just right” temperature. Students will use temperature probes and code using ScratchX during their investigation.

Type: Lesson Plan

In this lesson, students will address the following real-world problem of sand dune erosion while integrating Engineering Design concepts:

Florida’s coastline has been ravaged by winds from hurricanes, resulting in damage to sand dunes and oceanfront properties. Your mission is to design the most effective barrier that would limit the amount of sand displaced from our tall sand dunes and prevent further damage to oceanfront buildings. Your designs can help us save the sand dunes before they are blown away!

Type: Lesson Plan

In this Engineering Design Challenge lesson, students will create a model beach and use different materials to find a solution to slow down the erosion process.

Type: Lesson Plan

In this Engineering Design Challenge, students must design a vessel that will carry passengers safely and quickly across a body of water by harnessing the power of the wind. Students will be given the opportunity to test and improve their vessels as they apply various math and science skills.

Type: Lesson Plan

This Engineering Design Challenge is intended to help students apply the concepts of heat insulators as they build a model house and test different materials to use as insulators, stopping the warm air from escaping and keeping the cool air out. Students will also have an opportunity to use technology in their exploration of heat energy.

Type: Lesson Plan

Come sail away with this STEM activity! Students will use hands-on inquiry to find out more about wind and its effect on sails. Through trial and error and based on data collected, students will design, build, and race their own vessel or "sailboat" across the boundless waters of a kiddie pool. Students should gain a better understanding of how moving water and air are sources of energy and can propel objects forward at varying rates of speed.

Type: Lesson Plan

This is an Engineering Design Project that builds upon the understanding of wind as a natural resource. It is applying content knowledge and is not intended as an initial introduction to the benchmarks.

Type: Lesson Plan

Students will conduct a guided inquiry lab involving the chemical change that creates rust. This lab is meant to be set up in one day and then observed over the course of 3 weeks.

Type: Lesson Plan

After dissecting a flower(s), the students will be able to identify the parts necessary for pollination, or reproduction of flowering plants. They will also make comparisons and find patterns in nature, leading them to the understanding of the processes of sexual reproduction in flowering plants, including pollination and fertilization (seed production).

Type: Lesson Plan

Through demonstrations and lab/investigate rotations, students will explore physical and chemical changes.

Type: Lesson Plan

In this lesson, students are shown the difference between physical and chemical changes by dissolving and crushing seltzer tablets. Students learn to recognize that physical changes involved changes in size, shape, or texture, while chemical changes involve the formation of a new substance.

Type: Lesson Plan

In this lesson, students learn about the Moon's changing appearance and its pattern of movement. Through class discussion, activities, and multimedia resources, students explore the phases of the Moon and are introduced to the concept of orbital motion. The Moon, Earth's only natural satellite, is easily observed with the naked eye. Over the course of one month, students observe and investigate its full range of appearances and its pattern of movement in the sky. Students then model the sun, earth and moon system in the classroom.

Type: Lesson Plan

This is a fun science lesson that teaches children about inherited animal behaviors through observation and direct instruction. Students then use their new skills to write a news article explaining what school might be like if teachers or students had different inherited and learned behaviors. This lesson can be integrated into reading and includes an opportunity for writing across the curriculum.

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

This Engineering Design Challenge is intended to help fourth grade students apply the concepts of the flow of heat from a hot object to a cold object and that heat flow may cause objects to change temperature. It is not intended as an initial introduction to this benchmark.

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

Students will participate in a hands-on lab activity in which they will measure and compare apples based on many of their physical properties.

Type: Lesson Plan

In this activity, students act as engineers to determine which type of insulation would conserve the most energy.

Type: Lesson Plan

Activity: You will measure thumb length, wrist circumference, and thumb circumference to determine which factor plays a bigger part in determining our class thumb-wrestling champion. You will develop a hypothesis based on physical data collected from classmates. You will then test your hypothesis by conducting a thumb wrestling championship. After making observations and analyzing the results, you will form a conclusion to answer the challenge question.

Type: Lesson Plan

In this lesson, students will explore with scientific tools often used by scientists to provide them experience with the tools they will be using throughout the year on labs and investigations. They will compare the methods, observations, and results made by different groups using multiple tools and seek reasons to explain the differences across groups. The students will keep records that describe observations made, carefully distinguishing actual observations from ideas and inferences about the observations.

Type: Lesson Plan

Practice distinguishing between observations and inferences that are based on observations as you help Darius fill in his science notebook in this interactive tutorial.

Type: Original Student Tutorial

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 investigate different balls' abilities to bounce and represent the data they collect graphically.

Type: Teaching Idea

Students have an opportunity to identify a variety of sounds in the environment, discuss the sounds using appropriate terminology and identify whether they are a product of human production or the natural environment.

Type: Teaching Idea

Students will compare and contrast the growth rate of plants grown in different soils.

Type: Teaching Idea

In this classroom lab setting, students will construct Decomposition Columns from two-liter plastic bottles. Students will gather organic material and observe activity in the column. Students will record observations and construction steps in their science notebook.

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

In this classroom activity, the students will investigate the magnetic pull of a bar magnet at varying distances with the use of paper clips. Students will hypothesize, conduct the experiment, collect the data, and draw conclusions that support their data. Each student will record the experiment and their findings in their science journals. As a class, students will compare each groups' data and their interpretation of the results.

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 learn the physical properties of rocks and how they are formed.

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

Watch a demonstration of an experiment which tests the effectiveness of two different insulators. The participants will demonstrate their thinking as they run an experiment, identify variables and collect data.

Type: Video/Audio/Animation