Fisheries Learning on the Web
FLOW is a comprehensive curriculum about the Great Lakes ecosystem with three core units: Food Web, Water and Fish. Geared toward upper elementary and middle school educators, standards-based lesson content features hands-on activities.
Inference by Analogy (Archaeology)
Students will use ethnohistoric sources and an archaeological site map to study ethnohistoric analogy. This unit is based on Lesson 2.11 in "Intrigue of the Past: North Carolina's First Peoples", which is part of a national curriculum-development program called "Project Archaeology":
Grandparent Interview
Students will interview a grandparent and write a news article based upon their interview. They will also do research on historical events to develop questions to be asked during the interview.
Life Social Sciences Slide Show
Students will use photos to create a slideshow of their life. They will plan a presentation based on significant episodes of their life and describe their personal experiences in writing.
Scientific Inquiry (Archaeology)
This lesson introduces students to scientific inquiry through the use of an activity sheet. This unit is based on Lesson 1.7 in "Intrigue of the Past: North Carolina's First Peoples", which is part of a national curriculum-development program called "Project Archaeology":
Shadows of North Carolina's Past (Archaeology)
In their study of artifact and lifeway pictures, students will observe and discuss past Native American lifeways and construct a timeline of four major culture periods in Native American Social Sciences. This unit is based on Lesson 4.1
Technology Enabled Art: Pamela Z
SPARK visits with San Francisco-based composer/performer and audio artist Pamela Z who works primarily with voice, live electronic processing, and sampling technology, including the BodySynth, a device that allows her to manipulate sound with physical gesture. This Educator Guide addresses the role ...
Coastal Clash: Understanding Private Property Rights
"Coastal Clash" is a one-hour documentary focusing on the urbanization of California's coastline. The activities and lesson plans for the film "Coastal Clash" target students at the high school level and align with the California State Standards for Government. Students will study the concept of "private property" and the Fifth Amendment, analyze arguments, and evaluate evidence to develop their own opinions.
Experimenting: Kunst-Stoff
Kunst-Stoff is an experimental dance company based in San Francisco that explores the intersection of dance with other art forms, such as visual arts and film. This Educator Guide introduces students to experimental dance, and provides strategies to explore movement.
Where in the World? Understanding Latitude and Longitude
Students play a grid-based game and devise clues to help classmates locate spots on the globe. In doing so, they come to recognize the value of using latitude and longitude for identifying locations.
Slow Bicycle Race
Experiments at Jefferson Lab will take weeks to months to complete. During this time scientists will collect millions of pieces of data. Once the scientists have the data, they begin to analyze the data using computers, looking for evidence to support or disprove their theories. To simulate the scientific data collection process, students will create the necessary data to calculate speed.
Optional Soil Moisture Sensor Protocol
The purpose of this resource is to measure the water content of soil based on the electrical resistance of soil moisture sensors. Students install soil moisture sensors in holes that are 10 cm, 30 cm, 60 cm, and 90 cm deep. They take daily readings of soil moisture data by connecting a meter to the sensors and using a calibration curve to determine the soil water content at each depth.
Bird Beak Accuracy Assessment
The purpose of this resource is to quantitatively evaluate the accuracy of a classification system. Students sort birds into three possible classes based on each bird's beak: carnivores, herbivores, and omnivores. Students compare their answers with a given set of validation data.
Draw Your Own Visualization
The purpose of this activity is to learn about visualizations by designing and drawing one. Students draw a visualization based either on their interests and ideas about the world or based on actual GLOBE data. They are asked to justify the design choices they make and to interpret the visualizations of their peers. Intended outcomes are that students learn to identify and communicate important patterns in a dataset by drawing a visualization, and begin to interpret those patterns. Students sele
Making a Contour Map
The purpose of this activity is to learn how contour maps can be made by hand. Students plot data from GLOBE schools on a map with latitude and longitude lines and draw contours based on the values plotted. A suggested extension and how to use this activity as an assessment is included.
Crash Scene Investigation Activities
Help the highway patrol recreate a deadly crash by examining the evidence and calculating the forces. Edheads helps students learn through educational games and activities designed to meet state and national standards. Teacher guides, lesson plans and classroom handouts available.
GEOLogic: Continental Drift and Plate Tectonics
GEOLogic questions are puzzles that were developed to support students understanding of geoscience concepts while challenging them to develop better logic and problem solving skills. In this exercise, students are asked to match up lecturers with what day and time they teach, and how many students they have in each class based on clues given from several different perspectives. In the second part of the activity, students are asked to learn more about the historic figures mentioned by doing read
GEOLogic: Museums and their Dinosaur Displays
GEOLogic questions are puzzles that were developed to support students understanding of geoscience concepts while challenging them to develop better logic and problem solving skills. In this exercise, students are asked to match five top museums with two fossils that they have on display based on clues presented from various points of view. This activity is appropriate for a high school science class or an introductory level undergraduate geoscience course, and can be given as an in-class assign
Introduction to Texas Hurricanes
In this activity students are asked to graph data about some 20th century hurricanes that hit the Texas coastline. The students are then asked to form conclusions and answer questions based on those graphs. This activity is appropriate for an introductory climatology or meteorology class. The site includes downloadable teaching activities.
Modeling the interior of the Earth using Seismic Waves
This is an inquiry-based student exercise designed to explore how we use seismic waves to understand the structure of the Earth's interior. Students test several models of the interior of the Earth beginning with a simple homogeneous Earth and moving toward more complex multi-layered Earth models. The ultimate goal involves student generation of a model that reproduces actual measured seismic travel times as closely as possible. The activity is appropriate for an introductory level geoscience co
