Lesson Plans (Page 3)

Push and Pull Forces: What Makes Things Move?

Video Lesson Grade: Kindergarten

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9 reviews

Kindergarten students are used to moving objects. They throw balls, roll toy cars, and sweep the floor, but how much do they think about the forces behind these movements? In this fun hands-on lesson, students will use a game (rolling balls) to explore how pushing and pulling affects an object's motion. Read more

NGSS Performance Expectations:

K-PS2-1. Plan and conduct an investigation to compare the effects of different strengths or different directions of pushes and pulls on the motion of an object.

What Factors Affect the Strength of an Electromagnet?

Lesson Plan Grade: 6th-8th

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3 reviews

Making an electromagnet from a battery, nail, and wire is a classic science demonstration. But instead of just demonstrating this for your students, let them explore it themselves! In this lesson they will discover how different variables affect the strength of an electromagnet. Read more

NGSS Performance Expectations:

MS-PS2-3. Ask questions about data to determine the factors that affect the strength of electric and magnetic forces.

Birthday Season Weather Report

Lesson Plan Grade: Kindergarten

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3 reviews

In this lesson, students will create weather report cards of their birthday seasons and analyze them to identify differences and similarities between them. Based on their observations, they will explain how weather conditions change between seasons and discuss how we adapt to seasonal changes. Read more

NGSS Performance Expectations:

K-ESS2-1. Use and share observations of local weather conditions to describe patterns over time.

Build a Recycling-Sorting Machine

Lesson Plan Grade: 6th-8th

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14 reviews

In this lesson plan, your students will build their own recycling sorting machines that use various methods, like magnets or puffs of air, to separate shreds of paper from paper clips. This lesson is inspired by the real-world engineering challenge of separating various materials, like paper, plastic, and metals, that get combined in single-stream recycling programs. Read more

NGSS Performance Expectations:

MS-PS2-3. Ask questions about data to determine the factors that affect the strength of electric and magnetic forces.
MS-PS2-5. Conduct an investigation and evaluate the experimental design to provide evidence that fields exist between objects exerting forces on each other even though the objects are not in contact.
MS-ETS1-2. Evaluate competing design solutions using a systematic process to determine how well they meet the criteria and constraints of the problem.

Building Junkbots—Robots from Recycled Materials

Lesson Plan Grade: 6th-8th

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13 reviews

Junkbots are easy-to-build robots that you can make using a simple circuit and some recyclable materials. In this lesson, your students will learn about engineering design as they compete to build the fastest robot. No previous robotics experience is required! Read more

NGSS Performance Expectations:

MS-ETS1-4. Develop a model to generate data for iterative testing and modification of a proposed object, tool, or process such that an optimal design can be achieved.

Defining an Engineering Design Problem with Paper Airplanes

Lesson Plan Grade: 3rd-5th

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30 reviews

Are paper airplanes a nuisance in your classroom? They don't have to be! Those distractions can be a constructive learning opportunity: use them to teach your students about the engineering design process. In this fun lesson, you will be the "customer" ordering a paper airplane, and your student teams will be engineering companies that will manufacture planes. Before they start making planes, they need to define the criteria and constraints of this engineering problem. Read more

NGSS Performance Expectations:

3-5-ETS1-1. Define a simple design problem reflecting a need or a want that includes specified criteria for success and constraints on materials, time, or cost.

Engineering Car Crash Safety with Newton's Third Law

Lesson Plan Grade: 6th-8th

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Combine Newton's third law of motion with engineering design in one fun lesson! Your students will learn about equal and opposite reaction forces as they design and build a bumper to protect a toy car during a crash. Read more

NGSS Performance Expectations:

MS-PS2-1. Apply Newton's Third Law to design a solution to a problem involving the motion of two colliding objects.
MS-ETS1-4. Develop a model to generate data for iterative testing and modification of a proposed object, tool, or process such that an optimal design can be achieved.

How are New Materials Invented?

Video Lesson Grade: 5th

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6 reviews

New materials often involve chemical reactions, and slime is no exception. In this lesson, students will use the engineering design process to design a slime product. They will need to decide on the desired properties for their slime and then experiment to find the best recipe. Read more

NGSS Performance Expectations:

3-5-ETS1-1. Define a simple design problem reflecting a need or a want that includes specified criteria for success and constraints on materials, time, or cost.
5-PS1-4. Conduct an investigation to determine whether the mixing of two or more substances results in new substances.

Using Green Chemistry to Understand Types of Chemical Reactions

Lesson Plan Grade: 9th-12th

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11 reviews

This lab discusses types of reactions and replaces traditional reaction experiments involving chemicals such as lead (II) nitrate, barium chloride, and silver nitrate with greener alternatives. This lab is designed to challenge students to identify types of chemical reactions and distinguish between those that use safer, less hazardous chemicals and those that are more dangerous. Students will make a choice as to which reaction they will perform using the 12 Principles of Green Chemistry. They… Read more

Can You See Through Me?

Lesson Plan Grade: 1st

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21 reviews

In this lesson, students explore firsthand what transparent, translucent, and opaque mean, and how they are related to light. They will place a variety of materials in front of an illuminated object and predict if and how well they will be able to see the object through the material sheet. In doing that, students will realize that different materials allow different amounts of light to pass through. Remote learning: This lesson plan can be conducted remotely. The Engage section of the… Read more

NGSS Performance Expectations:

1-PS4-3. Plan and conduct investigations to determine the effect of placing objects made with different materials in the path of a beam of light.

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