Resources for Teaching Science

This is a great website that has tons of free mini-lessons. I think this would be a great tool to use in the classroom if you did not have time for a complete science lesson that day. You could find one that applys to the topic that you are covering and present that mini-lesson to the class. The lessons cover many different topics. I looked through the lessons and many of them I believe would keep the students actively engaged. Even if you did not completely follow the mini-lessons, you could use them as a reference.

Some of these seem a bit advanced for k-5.

This is a great website that has tons of free lesson plans, videos, and quizzes. It covers a wide range of topics including, life science, physical science, the human body, and space. It includes content for grades K-12. It even includes interactive diagrams for students to complete. I think this resource could be used in the classroom in multiple ways. The activities could be used for instruction or reinforcement.

Very easy to search, by grade level or content area. The lessons I found were good foundations for particular content, but needed some sparking up, especially in terms of an engaging introduction.

This looked like a great free app that can be used on an ipad or iphone. You can look at the sky in a 3D or 2D form. It shows the star consolations in relation to the planets. This would be a great app to use when learning about the solar system and the stars. The app is free and it gets great reviews. This would be a good way to integrate technology into the curriculum.

I have the star walk App, which is not free. This looks Iike a good free alternative, with perhaps fewer ways to get "lost" in space with zooming in on objects, a good thing for younger students!

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.

The website includes directions for a great kinesthetic approach to teaching constellations. This project consists of star cookies which the students configure into different constellations. I selected this resource to use during my stars lesson plan. After seeing the stars in the distances I feel this project will bring the idea of constellations down to earth.

I was surprised to find this website to be written in French! It would require some calculation to convert the recipe from grams to our more standard measurements, or at least a kitchen scale. This recipe isn't essential to the star shape, though, which could be achieved with regular sugar cookie dough and a small star cutter.I do love the idea of placing the cookies in a pattern and connecting with chalk or crayon to either "create" new constellations (for which students could also write related myths or stories) or review and recreate the existing constellations under study.

The website is a great resource for any elementary school teacher. It is broken down into sections such as organization, search engines, games, activities, etc. While I obviously didn't look at all 100, the ones I did look at seemed like they had great potential. The organization section seemed especially promising because I struggle with keeping things organized. It has websites similar to diigo to provide you with more ideas and inspiration. I think this will be a great starting point for any new lesson that I decide to try. Picking any of the 100 sites is sure to bring up something helpful. It includes free audiobooks, body maps, worksheets, electronic field-trips, etc.

I found several of the links to be faulty--leading to old sites no longer functioning, or to sites that looked questionable. However, I did also find Climate Zone, which allows you to use a clickable map to select a region of the world, and then a country, for which the site then provides latitude, longitude, and climate information about the location. This would be a good resource for students researching regions of the world or biomes.

This online activity gives students an opportunity to use riddle descriptions to match to an animal. The website also allows students to take a virtual hike and discusses the idea of preserving our national parks, seashores, and preserves. Teachers could use this to review a lesson on animals or open a lesson to students who want to know more about animal habitats.

So excited about the virtual hike option!! I love it! Would be good for relating to concepts of biome as well.

Once students have learned to observe weather, they can build their own weather tools through the directions on this website. They can record their own weather data and understand how we find temperature, wind speed, cloud type, humidity, etc. Teachers could incorporate this into future lesson plans to engage students about weather and give them a hands-on experience into the world of a meteorologist.

I like the opportunity for students to make their own weather instruments. They could do this in class, or as a family project and then monitor different aspects of the weather at home as well.

Introducing Discovery Channel's "How Big is My Universe." This Discovery Channel school video was created to show students the many different parts of our galaxy along with the properties of its elements. This is not only a great introductory resource for my Solar System unit, but it also encompasses a program overview that includes a lesson guide. This extra resource includes discussion questions, teacher activities, related resources, and important vocabulary words. As the video guide suggests, " What better way to answer the eternal question about size than to bring the solar system down to earth?"

This is such a cool concept that I really wanted to find the video available online. I'm surprised I can't find it! I did, however, locate it as a DVD available as DVD from software express (swexpress.com) for 31.95. Steep price. Maybe libraries have it?

STUDY JAMS! A website sponsored by Scholastic books. This page includes a 3 minute video, sing-a-long, vocabulary lesson, and quiz. In addition, this sight includes a link for a matter lesson plan and teachers guide

Love the video, which could be used as a good review, or in segments along with instruction and experiments on the individual phases of matter. Very kid-relevant and scientifically correct, including temperature and molecule movement, using the analogy of "teams" of molecules.

Visual depicting geological time. Good visual for a review or to pinpoint a particular period of time under study withing historical perspective.

Beautiful depiction of the history of space travel. May be used to show trends in technological advances and the history of space exploration.

"Underskin" Metro map in the style of the London Tube provides a visual of 8 body systems. Useful in showing anatomy in a simplified and unique way that may "hook" some students more than the usual body system diagrams. Also useful in the way it "maps" the different systems on the same body.

QR codes for each element lead to a video related to each element on the periodic table. Print out for each student to generate an interactive table for students to use with smart phones

Pinterest is a wonderful blog site for almost anything, including future teachers. This is a weather experiment that has students understand how rain comes through a cloud. Fill the cup with water. Put shaving cream on top for a cloud. Explain that when clouds get really heavy with water, it rains! Then put blue food coloring on top of the cloud, and watch it rain. Students would enjoy this hands-on experiment and help them to raise questions about weather.

Pinterest is a wonderful blog site for almost anything, including future teachers. By putting pipe cleaners in a 2 liter soda bottle, students can examine magnets. You can also click on that information to open up another website full of wonderful magnetic activities. http://heidisongs.blogspot.com/2011/12/another-science-center-marvelous.html Students who are learning about magnets will be able to create fun, easy experiments through this website. Also, it suggest having students learn what is magnetic and what is not magnetic. Teachers would have fun allowing their students to experiment with these types of materials.

This is from the Alabama Learning Exchange. Students will learn the difference between reusing, reducing, and recycling. Teachers could use this in their classroom, specifically, when learning about Earth Day or how to keep our planet green. It also has wonderful ways to integrate among other subjects: math, social studies, art, and cooking.

This website includes the instructions for a kinesthetic approach to teaching the layers of the earth. The project consist of layering different color Playdoughs on top of eachother to simulate the earths layers. After completing their mini earth sculptures, students will be able to cut the earth in half and visual see the different layers through the different color Playdough. This project is going to be a great addition to my "The Place I Call Home" lesson as it not only consists of a kinesthetic approach to learning, but it also includes the visual approach.

This website allows students to interact and learn a lot about plants. It is very interdisciplinary. I selected this resource because I think it would be fun for kids and grab their attention. I would use this resource during a unit on plants, and this website alone could be used for at least a week to talk about all of the different things that are involved with plants. I think students would have a good understanding of plants after going through the different lessons of this website. 

Tons of content, which requires a LOT of reading! I would up this to grades 3 and above, I think. Especially like the bilingual aspect!