Lesson Plans (Page 3)

What Animals Need to Survive

Lesson Plan Grade: Kindergarten

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17 reviews

At some point, many children wish for a pet animal to play with and care for. But what does it take to keep an animal alive and healthy? In this engaging lesson plan, children will act out adopting a pet and shopping for items based on its needs. As they bring their items together, they will notice that every animal needs food, water, shelter, and air to survive. Read more

NGSS Performance Expectations:

K-LS1-1. Use observations to describe patterns of what plants and animals (including humans) need to survive.

Can You See Through Me?

Lesson Plan Grade: 1st

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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.

Make a Miniature Habitat

Lesson Plan Grade: Kindergarten-2nd

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Get creative with your students in this hands-on lesson plan! Students will use mostly natural materials to build a shoebox habitat that mimics a real-life habitat for an animal of their choice. As they present their miniature habitats to each other, students realize that not all habitats are suitable for all animals. Each animal species needs the resources of a specific habitat to survive. Read more

NGSS Performance Expectations:

K-ESS-3-1. Use a model to represent the relationship between the needs of different plants and animals (including humans) and the places they live.
2-LS4-1. Make observations of plants and animals to compare the diversity of life in different habitats.>/li>

What Factors Affect the Strength of an Electromagnet?

Lesson Plan Grade: 6th-8th

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.

Build a Recycling-Sorting Machine

Lesson Plan Grade: 6th-8th

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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.

Defining an Engineering Design Problem with Paper Airplanes

Lesson Plan Grade: 3rd-5th

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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.

Doctor, What Does My Plant Need?

Lesson Plan Grade: Kindergarten

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In this lesson, students will role-play a consultation between a plant scientist and a plant owner. The goal is for the plant scientist to identify what is wrong with the plant based on the information given by the plant owner. As they evaluate what the unhealthy plant has or doesn't have, students will realize that plants need four things (air, water, light, and soil) to live and grow. Read more

NGSS Performance Expectations:

K-LS1-1. Use observations to describe patterns of what plants and animals (including humans) need to survive.

Happy or Sad? Exploring Bias in Machine Learning

Lesson Plan Grade: 6th-8th

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Classifying happy and sad faces is an easy task for most humans, but can we teach a machine to do it? In this fun lesson, students will use machine learning to try this out and see how easy it is for bias to creep in. This experiment requires no computer programming skills! In an optional extension, students will also use their imaginations to explore the potential benefits and dangers of artificial intelligence solutions. This lesson will give students an awareness of how prevalent artificial… Read more

NGSS Performance Expectations:

MS-ETS1-1. Define the criteria and constraints of a design problem with sufficient precision to ensure a successful solution, taking into account relevant scientific principles and potential impacts on people and the natural environment that may limit possible solutions.
MS-ETS1-2. Evaluate competing design solutions using a systematic process to determine how well they meet the criteria and constraints of the problem.

Make a Water Cycle Model

Lesson Plan Grade: 6th-8th

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Earth is a planet full of water. 70% of its surface is covered with water in oceans, lakes, rivers, and more. Water on our planet can also be found in the atmosphere and underground. In this lesson, students will explore how water is continually cycled among land, the oceans, and the atmosphere. As students build a physical model of the water cycle, they will be able to simulate and observe evaporation, condensation, precipitation, and other water cycle processes in real-time. Remote… Read more

NGSS Performance Expectations:

MS-ESS2-4. Develop a model to describe the cycling of water through Earth's systems driven by energy from the sun and the force of gravity.

Paper Rockets to Learn the Scientific Method

Lesson Plan Grade: 6th-8th

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Do you need a fun, easy way to teach your students about the scientific method? Try this lesson that uses rockets made from nothing but paper, tape, and straws. An elementary school version of this lesson plan is also available. Read more

NGSS Performance Expectations:

MS-Science Practices.

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