Grapes of Wrath Scrapbook
This activity aims to enhance reading and understanding of The Grapes of Wrath through ethnographic research -- collections of sound recordings, drawings, photos, fieldnotes, and correspondence. Students show how cultural artifacts support one of themes in the novel.
Jumanji
After reading the electronic version of the Jumanji book, please take this quiz to test your knowledge and understanding.
Elementary Mathematics: Times Tables II
Learn and practice times tables. This is the second of two modules and practices the 6, 7, 8, 9, 11 and 12 times tables. It includes multiplication testing, corresponding division exercises and missing-operand exercises as part of a range of different task types designed to develop an all-round understanding of the times tables.
Enhancing Physics Knowledge for Teaching – Maxwell’s Equations
In this session we’re going to look at how electricity and magnetism can be unified into a system of equations, named after James Clerk Maxwell, the Scottish physicist who first proposed them. Then we’ll see how this leads to an understanding of the nature of electromagnetic radiation.
Rocking the Boat
The concepts of stability and equilibrium are introduced while students learn how these ideas are related to the concept of center of mass. They gain further understanding when they see, first-hand, how equilibrium is closely related to an object's center of mass. In an associated literacy activity, students learn about motion capture technology, the importance of center of gravity in animation and how use the concept of center of gravity in writing an action scene.
Get Charged!
Students are introduced to the idea of electrical energy. They learn about the relationships between charge, voltage, current and resistance. They discover that electrical energy is the form of energy that powers most of their household appliances and toys. In the associated activities, students learn how a circuit works and test materials to see if they conduct electricity. Building upon a general understanding of electrical energy, they design their own potato power experiment. In two literacy
Go with the Flow
Students gain an understanding of the difference between electrical conductors and insulators, and experience recognizing a conductor by its material properties. In a hands-on activity, students build a conductivity tester to determine whether different objects are conductors or insulators. In another activity, students use their understanding of electrical properties to choose appropriate materials to design and build their own basic circuit switch.
Will It Fly?
In this lesson, students will learn about kites and gliders and how these models can help in understanding the concept of flight. Students will design and build their own balsa wood models and experiment with different control surfaces. The goal of this lesson is for students to apply their existing knowledge about the four forces affecting flight and apply engineering design to develop a sound glider. They will also communicate the reasoning and results of any design modifications made.
Fascinating Friction!
In this activity, students use wood, wax paper and oil to investigate the importance of lubrication between materials and to understand the concept of friction. Using wax paper and oil placed between pieces of wood, the function of lubricants between materials is illustrated. Students extend their understanding of friction to bones and joints in the skeletal system and become aware of what engineers can do to help reduce friction in the human body as well as in machines.
Pitch and Frequency
To further their understanding of sound energy, students identify the different pitches and frequencies created by a vibrating ruler and a straw kazoo. They create high- and low-pitch sound waves.
Traveling Sound
Students explore how sound waves move through liquids, solids and gases in a series of simple sound energy experiments. Understanding the properties of sound and how sound waves travel helps engineers determine the best room shape and construction materials when designing sound recording studios, classrooms, libraries, concert halls and theaters
Disaster Dynamics
The Disaster Dynamics project is a learning environment for the study of the unique challenges surrounding natural disasters. By focusing on dynamics, this project emphasizes the complex and emergent interplay between different aspects of the design activities and the extreme event. The website has several educational role-playing simulation games such as decision making under uncertainty, complex systems and emergent properties, understanding design decisions and fostering collaborations.
Chronos: a network for Earth system history
CHRONOS (Greek: time) aims to create a dynamic, interactive and time-calibrated framework for Earth history. CHRONOS's main objective is to develop a network of databases and visualization and analytical methodologies that broadly deal with chronostratigraphy - that is, with developing a better tool (the time scale) for understanding fundamental Earth processes through time. The CHRONOS platform will provide a new investigative environment for interdisciplinary Earth history research that includ
Star Library: What Makes the Standard Deviation Larger or Smaller?
The activity is designed to help students develop a better intuitive understanding of what is meant by variability in statistics. Emphasis is placed on the standard deviation as a measure of variability. As they learn about the standard deviation, many students focus on the variability of bar heights in a histogram when asked to compare the variability of two distributions. For these students, variability refers to the “variation” in bar heights. Other students may focus only on the range of
Java Demography
Java Demography, an application that simulates exponential growth in age-structured populations, enables users to manipulate values for age-specific mortality rates, fertility rates, and initial population characteristics.
Through observation of how population characteristics change through time, users of Java Demography can investigate important questions in population biology, develop a deeper understanding of fundamental population concepts, and explore issues related to population policy.
Data Analysis: Two-Dice Toss
Once students realize that the outcomes of tossing one die are equally likely, they sometimes transfer that knowledge to tossing two dice. This is a common misconception that is best addressed through data collection and analyzing that data rather than through telling. See suggested two-dice games below that students can play to gain experiential knowledge of the results of tossing two dice. Several of the games encourage students to develop better strategies in order to win and their growing un
Math Activity Themes: Bats
Bats are a common theme at Halloween. Use these resources to capitalize on student interest in bats and develop student understanding of common mathematical patterns.
Hundred Board Activities 2
Students use "magic" to navigate around the hundred board. This activity introduces horizontal arrows which mean move one square in the direction the arrow points and vertical arrows which mean move up or down one row in the direction the arrow points. These activities support students as they develop understanding of powerful number patterns in the hundred board: (1) moving across or back one space means adding or subtracting one from the starting number; (2) moving up or down one row means add
Math Tours: Fractions
Students need many concrete experiences with fractions to develop a deep understanding of the three models of fractions: area, linear and set models. Teachers need to address all three models in well-designed instructional activities so that students develop a rich concept of fractions that they can use to make sense of numbers, operations, measurement and probability. The Math Tours include: activities, problem solving, games, writing to learn, templates, math-literature connections, and web li
Algebra: Growing Patterns
Introduce elementary students to the concept of functions by investigating growing patterns. Visual patterns formed with manipulatives are especially effective for elementary students and allow them to concretely build understanding as they first reproduce, then extend the pattern to the next couple of stages.
