Resources for Teaching Science

This is a cool moon demo to show the moon is always the same size. I want to try it on a night where there is a harvest moon and then on a night when the moon looks like an average night.

This website includes several different lesson plans on recycling. The one that I enjoyed the most is teaching them how long trash lasts, discusses decomposing along with other things. The lesson plan includes what subject areas are included in the lesson, a brief description, grades, objectives, keywords, materials, along with many other key components. It is a very good lesson for teachers to use as a guideline.

While this is interesting information, the activity focuses on a lot of guessing without linking to prior experience or involving students in finding out for themselves. You say "guideline" as a use, and I would suggest it be only that, perhaps related to a unit on food chains that involves the concept of decomposition. Students could design their own experiment to observe the decomposition of different objects over time.

This is an interactive game that allows the students to decide what items need to go in what bin. There are different bins that the items are able to go in, and the student must reach a goal to move on to the next level. I believe that this is a fun, interactive game that is also able to help teach the students about recycling.

Very cute game for young learners to expose them to bugs and other species. You could make a work wheet to go along with it or just for fun. It would be really need on an Ipad or Smart Table.

I don't see any science content here...just different kinds of animals?

This page gives good background information on the solar system. I chose this source because I think it is a good place to start a lesson on the solar system. I imagine this will begin the unit on the Solar System.

This is an education application for iPad that offers both a free and a paid version. The app is an interactive way for students to learn about the size and history of the solar system. I chose this resource because I liked that it utilized the technology of the iPads as a way to teach science to children. I imagine this resource being used in a small group setting in my classroom.

This is a video of a "weather rap" that reviews weather for kids by asking a question and pausing for students to come up with the answer. The answer then pops up on the screen so students know if they were correct or not. I would use this in my classroom as a review before a test for a fun way to help the students remember.

This is a diagram that explains the water cycle and gives definitions on words pertaining to the water cycle. I would use this in my future classroom to give my students a visual to help better their understanding.

This a science experiment that involves students making a cloud in a bottle. I would use this in my classroom as a fun activity to extend a lesson over clouds and reward my students for all their hard work at the end of the week.

This is a lesson plan over clouds and what they are made of. It involves activities for the students during the lesson and includes a worksheet that also incorporates math. I would use this lesson in my classroom as an introduction lesson to clouds because I feel that it would really grab the students' attention and curiosity.

This is an interactive website that explains in a kid-friendly way what causes the seasons and how we measure temperature. There are also related games on the website for students to play. I would use this website in my future classroom to explain how seasons work and reinforce those concepts through the games provided.

This website gives a list of famous astronauts and their biography. I would use this in a classroom and give each students an astronaut and have them research the astronaut and give us (the class) a short presentation on their findings. You could use this website in multiple ways.

This website includes information on each planet, the sun, the moon, asteroids, comets, meteorites, explorations of space, telescopes, types of equipment etc... I would use this website for an activity where students learn about each planet, the universe and what is in the universe. I also like this website because it contains videos of the Mars space shuttle, telescopes, etc... I think that would be a useful tool for students who are visual, auditory and kinesthetic.

This website includes: lesson plan, worksheets, higher-level thinking and reasoning questions for students. It has four weeks of activities to better understand the solar system and the entire universe and what it is made of. The four weeks are sections off into groups: Universe, Solar System, Earth and Geography. This website list all materials needed, the background information needed, higher-level thinking questions asked to students, diagrams and visual on each subject matter. There is a lab that gets the students working together and reasoning through their connections and answers. I would use this in my third grade classroom to help the students reason on why the planets rotate like they do, and other higher-level thinking questions. This will help the students reason, think on higher-levels of questions not just in science but in all subject areas.

Great find!

What I liked about this website was the fact that it has a section for teachers and parents, and also an interactive website for the young ones. It teaches the students about the importance of the environment, and how important it is to take care of it. There are games, videos, and create your own "EekoCreature". In the teacher section, it includes lesson plans for K-4. Each lesson plan includes an overview, objectives, subject area, other internet links, background, steps, several activities, and standards. I also liked the fact that it comes from a PBS website.

This short video gives a brief description of the solar system. Although it doesn't go into great detail, it is a great starting point to get the students interested on the subject and excited to learn more about solar system. One thing that I really like about this video is the fact that is doesn't say anything about Pluto. Many of the other videos that I watched still included information about Pluto.

This lesson provides information on Benjamin Franklin and his inventions. This lesson explains what a scientist does and how Benjamin Franklin's inventions derived from need. This lesson includes a fun matching game, similar to Memory, of Benjamin Franklin's inventions and explanations of why they were invented.

This resource is game the students can play that helps them identify the food chain and what animals hunt others. I think this resource would be used as a good extra activity for if the students finish an activity early. This is a great introduction to the food chain to let the students guess and explore what they already know. They could journal after about what they found and if they were wrong or if they were right and characteristics about the animals.

This game shows different living organisms that can be in the food chain and can be a fun way to add upon your lesson concerning food chains.

In this activity, students are shown a picture of wildlife and are asked to click on eight living things. Students can click on animals or plants. I chose this activity because younger students could use this as a starting point when learning about wildlife. I envision this being used in the lower grades as a beginning activity.

This is an episode of the Magic School Bus series that talks about the solar system. I chose this source because I like the way the information was presented, and because I think it will capture the kids' attention. I will show this video in class.

This is a lab activity where the students cut out the shapes of the planets and hang them from string making a solar system mobile. I chose this source because I like the hands on learning aspect it brings to the classroom.