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This lesson demonstrates a model of a species life cycle and how traits and the environment effects a species. Rather than looking at a worksheet that explains how traits are inherited or adapted due to the environment, this lesson allows students to see three generations of a species that they observe. Three different colored plastic Easter eggs and googly eyes are used for the outside appearance of the species. Two different colors of pipe cleaners are placed inside the eggs. The students make observations of color of the pipe cleaners and outer appearance. After their observation, they would write down their observation. They would take all the pipe cleaners out and throw them into a container. The next day they would come back to find what the next generation looks like.

"Two similar plants are observed as one gets regular water and the other does not." This science lesson and activity can benefit students in so many ways. Students will be observing and making comparisons among two plants as one plant receives water and the other does not. Throughout this week-long project, the students will be coming up with their own theories about what will happen to each of these plants. Along with this, they will be comparing and contrasting their observations and the final results. I believe that students would love an activity like this, and it would be extremely beneficial to them as they learn how living things change and depend on their environment to satisfy their basic needs.

This is a great lesson on various visual illusions used to engage and intrigue students, all raising the question "Why is this an illusion?" With interest piqued, students are engaged to answer this question about the T-illusion, proposing hypotheses to explain what makes it an illusion, then designing simple experiments to test those hypotheses. This is extended to a look at natural illusions, and how science effectively reveals their reality.

In this SmartBoard activity, students get to group different living and nonliving things. It is an introduction to classification based on their physical characteristics. I would use this as an interactive class or group activity that gets everyone thinking about physical characteristics and how we can group different living and non-living things into categories. Students will have to interact with each other, and come to a consensus on what they think the answer will be. This is collaborative learning for them. 

This lesson uses a story of a group of students who cleaned a creek so that salmon could come back to the area. This lesson goes right with my standard: 5-ESS3- Obtain and combine information about ways individual communities use science ideas to protect the Earth's resources and environment. After I read this story to the students, they write a reflection of how they can do something similar to help the environment. I would use this lesson in my future classroom to show them that with a little work, anyone can make a difference in helping the environment.

This resource is a neat little activity that shows how plants absorb water using capillary action to transport water and nutrients from the trunk to the highest leaves. The activity involves cabbage and water colored with food coloring. The site gives a look at the cabbage leaves after 48 hours of "sucking" up the water. I chose this because I found it interesting and a neat, grade-appropriate way to explain plant biology to younger students. I would use this resource as part of a unit on plants, with a bonus use of the title if it is close to Halloween time.

This resource contains a video on how to make a pollution catcher. The materials needed for one catcher to be created is a paper plate, yarn/string, a hole punch, Vaseline, and a drawing utensil. I selected this resource because it fits the standard to- obtain and combine information about ways individual communities use science ideas to protect the Earth's resources and environment (5-ESS3-1). This standard will be the focus of my lesson in this course. Having each student create a pollution catcher would be a fast activity for most grade levels, especially the upper elementary grades. If I was to teach a fifth grade class, I would do this activity as means of teaching the standard mentioned above.

Kohl Children's Museum of Greater Chicago strives to be equally available to guests with any level of physical, visual, auditory, or cognitive challenge. This museum allows students to explore, design, build and test musical instruments to discover how sound is created through vibration. I selected this resource because it sounds like it would be an interesting place to visit on a field trip especially for younger students and it fits well with my standard 1-PS4-1 which talks about vibrating materials creating sounds. I would use this resource by taking a field trip here one day and having students explore the different instruments and the vibrations that they make. This field trip would occur after a unit of learning about sounds and vibrations.

While I didn't really understand what this lesson was trying to accomplish, it did help me come up with a great idea to connect a science lesson to "The Three Little Pigs." After we read the story, my class could discuss different types of houses that they could build, from material to shape/size. This would be a great activity to think of how the pigs could have stayed safe from the Big Bad Wolf from the beginning.

Grade Level: 2nd-4th; Type: Botany Objective: Test whether plants can grow without sunlight and water. How do plants make their own food? Plants contain a green pigment called chlorophyll, which can make food from water and energy from sunlight. But what happens when you deprive plants of water and sunlight? This would be a great classroom experiment completed by the entire class as a whole. It will show the students the real differences of a plant with or without food in the sunlight and in total darkness like a closet or cabinet. I would love to do this lesson in my classroom to demonstrate to the students what plants need to grow and survive just like we as people need certain things to grow and survive.

The Field Museum is a science centered museum located in Chicago, IL. This specific tour allows students to investigate how DNA analysis has changed our understanding of the relatedness of life on Earth through hands on activities. The students will be able to extract DNA in a lab and interview scientists. This field trip supports NGSS MS-LS4-2. I chose this location for a field trip because it engages students' learning and furthers their knowledge of DNA through hands on activity. I would take the students to participate in this DNA extraction after we finished our lesson on DNA. This way, they would be able to be even further engaged with questioning and answering with the scientists and apply our textbook knowledge to the activity.

This lesson explores the life cycle and traits of pumpkins. The class first makes a flip chart that shows the life cycle of a pumpkin. The next day the class could go to a local pumpkin patch and pair up with a partner to investigate one pumpkin per group. They would look at how many lines are on each pumpkin, the texture of the pumpkin and the color. Then the class would come back and create a graph to show what they discovered in the pumpkin patch. This is a great way to show the students the life cycle of a pumpkin and allow them to see that every pumpkin has unique traits.

This activity will allow students to produce a "marketable" product made from minerals in a product that many people use daily. Students will make their own toothpaste using the minerals, calcium carbonate and sodium bicarbonate. Students get to test their product against the basic toothpaste that many people use. The activity and lesson familiarize students will the natural compounds that are used to make many everyday things. Students will see that the combination of these two minerals makes something profitable. Students can also compare the prices of toothpastes to integrate math and to learn about the economy. The activity can be used when we are learning about minerals and natural resources, geoscience, or how communities use science.

This activity is a challenge to see if students can construct a bridge built out of toothpicks. The challenge revolves around certain guidelines and at the end, the bridges are tested to see how well they are able to hold weight. This is another activity I participated in during my schooling. It taught all of the participants planning skills, craftsmanship, and also the ability to compromise. I think this is a more applicable activity than the tissue paper hot air balloon activity because it is a less tedious object to construct. I believe my future students will find this activity a welcomed challenge.

This is a hands-on activity that allows students to grasp the idea of how far the planets are from each other and from the sun. The activity starts by having the students perform simply mathematics to convert the distance in astronomical units to centimeters. I really like that the students have to perform this task themselves and that it incorporates mathematics into the science lesson. After determining each planets distance from the sun, the students use color beads on a string to show each planets distance from the sun.

Love the science/math integration!

Because observation, prediction, and communication are all very important science skills, this project works perfectly to help students improve in all of those areas! As a teacher, I would use this activity to tie in with telling time and with our Solar System unit. This project would ideally be used in a third grade class and be a good hands on project. I thought that it would be fun to keep a classroom sun dial outside so we could keep a chart about how accurate it worked or even use it as some kind of experiment. I think it's a very unique lesson and project. It's something that you wouldn't see every day in a Science class with that age group.

Remove "science" tag and add something more specific, like "earth science." To keep words together, use " " around the word. For example, remove the tags "sun" and "dial" and add one that is "sun dial". Grade level tags should be k-2, 3-5, 6-8, and/or 9-12 to be consistent among all the resources.

I think that kids fun science is a great website to use in the classroom. It includes many activities that can be used in the classroom. I think the activities would be very engaging for students. For example: To demonstrate sedimentary layers there is an activity where they use graham crackers, and peanut butter and jelly. The website also includes many experiments that can be done in the classroom. It also includes how to host a science fair and the steps that students should take. I feel like this would be a resource that I would use in my classroom to help me teach science.

Glad to see some of the science behind these fun activities explained.

This is an entire unit on wetlands and it is completely free. There are five lessons on wetlands that each build on one another. I really like how the first lesson relies solely on the student's senses to experience wetlands. There are activities for each of the five senses that really get children engaged and in tune to what a wetland is. The second lesson teaches about different types of wetlands and includes a game to help learn them. Lesson three is great because it pairs this ecology lesson on wetlands with an English lesson on metaphors. It even includes objectives with measurable verbs, There are also great extension activities included! Each lesson in this unit plan has at least one video paired with it. I really like when there are videos provided, because teachers don'e have to use them, but they may if they choose. I would certainly use some of the videos that I thought would help better explain the context of the lesson, so visual and auditory learners would be able to better grasp the content. I could certainly see myself using this lesson in my future classroom. Especially since it is for upper elementary and middle school which are my ideal age group.

This is a game for kids to play about plants. In the game, the kids have to balance water and sun just right for the plant to grow or else it dies. This game is extremely beneficial for students to learn that plants need an equal balance of sun/water to stay allive. I would use this during the first part of my lesson.

This is a slideshow that explains weathering, erosion, and deposition. There are 31 informational slides. The slideshow explains in depth what each word means and how it affects the world and landmarks around us. I chose this slideshow because I thought it would help visual learners and it would be a nice introduction to the topic. Sometimes it is better to actually see what erosion does to a rock rather than just talk about it. I also liked that it gave real life pictures of erosion and weathering. I would use this resource to start my lesson on erosion. I would start with the slideshow and discuss all the important details and then break the students into groups to do an activity dealing with erosion and weathering.