Lesson Plans (Page 11)

Fighting Infections with Your Immune System

Lesson Plan Grade: 6th-8th

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7 reviews

What happens when you get food poisoning or the flu? How does our body fight an infection when we get sick? In this lesson, students will build a model of our immune system to find out how our body responds to invading bacteria or viruses that cause diseases and to investigate the role of memory cells. Read more

NGSS Performance Expectations:

MS-LS1-3. Use argument supported by evidence for how the body is a system of interacting subsystems composed of groups of cells.

Floating Magnets

Lesson Plan Grade: 3rd

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6 reviews

Do your students think making things float in mid-air is a magic trick? Show them how you can do it with science! In this lesson plan they will learn about interactions between magnets and figure out how to make them float. Read more

NGSS Performance Expectations:

3-PS2-3. Ask questions to determine cause and effect relationships of electric or magnetic interactions between two objects not in contact with each other.

Foldable Paper Robotic Gripper

Lesson Plan Grade: 6th-12th

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When your students think of robots, they probably think of materials like metal or plastic—but what about paper? In this lesson plan, your students will learn to make robotic parts from readily available classroom materials. Optionally, they can apply the engineering design process to improve the design or come up with their own designs. Read more

Food Waste Audit

Lesson Plan Grade: 3rd-11th

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"Fresh Food In Garbage Can to Illustrate Waste" by SpeedKingz/Shutterstock.com Have you ever thrown away food after a meal? Have you ever thrown away a whole piece of food? What are some of the reasons you threw away that food? During this Food Waste Audit, students will explore their own impact on our food system. Students will brainstorm solutions to reduce their food waste and be challenged to try out their solution! Read more

NGSS Performance Expectations:

MS-ESS3-3. Apply scientific principles to design a method for monitoring and minimizing a human impact on the environment.

Fool Your Vision to Find Out How It Works

Lesson Plan Grade: 6th-8th

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How is it possible that our eyes can see things that are not really there? In this fun lesson plan, your students will explore how our vision works with the help of two short experiments that involve some fascinating optical illusions. Let your students discuss why they see a hole in their hand, or why they see colors that were never there, and let them construct their own explanations. Read more

NGSS Performance Expectations:

MS-LS1-8. Gather and synthesize information that sensory receptors respond to stimuli by sending messages to the brain for immediate behavior or storage as memories.

From Farms to Phytoplankton

Lesson Plan Grade: 6th-11th

"Morganza Spillway" © 2011 NASA Earth Observatory Can we use a model to predict the impacts of nutrient pollutants on an aquatic ecosystem? In this activity, students participate in a kinesthetic simulation to illustrate how nutrient pollution from agricultural runoff can lead to a dead zone at the mouth of a drainage basin. Read more

NGSS Performance Expectations:

MS-ESS3-4. Construct an argument supported by evidence for how increases in human population and per-capita consumption of natural resources impact Earth's systems.

From Prokaryotes to Eukaryotes: Solving Problems Using Plasmids

Lesson Plan Grade: 9th-12th

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This lesson compares and contrasts prokaryotic and eukaryotic cells and examines the form and function of the plasmid found in prokaryotic cells. Students will then use these principles to simulate how a desirable gene can be isolated and inserted into a plasmid as one step in the process of creating a genetically modified organism (GMO). Read more

NGSS Performance Expectations:

HS-LS1-2. Develop and use a model to illustrate the hierarchical organization of interacting systems that provide specific functions within multicellular organisms.

Get Energized with Cellular Respiration!

Lesson Plan Grade: 6th-8th

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In this fun lesson plan, students will measure how the amount of carbon dioxide in their exhaled breath changes with exercise levels. Carbon dioxide is a product of cellular respiration, so the lesson highlights how breathing is connected to cellular respiration and energy production in our body. Students will make the measurements using a simple colorimetric reaction that can easily be assessed visually. Read more

NGSS Performance Expectations:

MS-LS1-7. Develop a model to describe how food is rearranged through chemical reactions forming new molecules that support growth and/or release energy as this matter moves through an organism.

How Gene Mutations Change Your Ability to Taste

Lesson Plan Grade: 6th-8th

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Explore genetic variation through the world of taste in this problem-solving lesson plan. Working both individually and collaboratively, students figure out what kind of tasters they are, what this means about their own genetics, and how genetic mutations can lead to functional differences. This activity provides a hands-on, personalized opportunity to learn about how genotypes and phenotypes align. Read more

NGSS Performance Expectations:

MS-LS3-1. Develop and use a model to describe why structural changes to genes (mutations) located on chromosomes may affect proteins and may result in harmful, beneficial, or neutral effects to the structure and function of the organism.
MS-LS3-2. Develop and use a model to describe why asexual reproduction results in offspring with identical genetic information and sexual reproduction results in offspring with genetic variation.

How Our Immune System and Vaccines Protect Us From Diseases

Lesson Plan Grade: 9th-12th

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What happens in our bodies when we get sick? How do vaccines protect us from certain diseases? These are some questions that students will learn to answer in this lesson plan. Through a series of activities, students will be introduced to our immune system. They will learn how vaccines make use of our adaptive immune response to fight diseases. Read more

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