Resources for Teaching Science

Skip Discover Education Main Navigation Skip Discover Education Main Navigation Students will: 1. Understand the relationship of the nine planets in our solar system to the sun by creating a three-dimensional representation. 2. Understand the planets' relative distance from the sun and their approximate size in relation to the Earth. I like this lesson because students need to understand our solar system and earth's relation to other planets. I would keep the completed solar system on display in the classroom to ensure students retain the material and can reference it if needed. I like how this lesson plan has adaptations and ways to extend the lesson.

Off the Rail is an exciting app that let's kids build and enjoy their very own roller coasters in a virtual environment. The fun is in the on the fly building while they are riding the coaster. With varying difficulty levels and extras to add lots of interest to each coaster, this app is one that will have little creative minds going for hours. I like this app because it will get my students creative minds thinking! It really encourages the students to use STEM! This app could be used when students finish their work early or it could even be used as a center.

This application allows for students to build their own roller coaster in a virtual reality. I really like the idea of students creating and constructing things. This application lets students create whatever their mind wants to. I believe that creativity is an easy way for students to become engaged in a lesson or activity. I would personally use this app to supplement a lesson focusing on force.

Help your students better understand how pollution gets in our rivers. Read and act out the story as a class. Follow up with a discussion about the pollutants left in the water. I picked this activity because it gives students an image of what happens to our water when we do not keep it clean. I think it is important to teach them early on the importance of keeping our earth clean. I would use this activity close to earth day when we are learning about the earth and pollution.

Students use potatoes to light an LED clock (or light bulb) as they learn how a battery works in a simple circuit and how chemical energy changes to electrical energy. As they learn more about electrical energy, they better understand the concepts of voltage, current and resistance. I chose this because I never did this in school! This really seems like an exciting and engaging lesson/activity. This lesson could be done in separate parts, with the first part being lecture based (learning about electricity) and the second part being the activity with the potato. I like how this resource has follow-up questions at the end of the lesson.

This activity uses skittles, warm water, and cold water. Skittles are dropped into warm water and cold water at the same time to see what dissolves first. I chose this lesson because I think it is a simple but great way to introduce the scientific method to students. Students tend to understand better with visuals and lecture. I would use this activity to introduce the scientific method to students. We would observe, make predictions, observe again, analyze, record our results. We would be able to use this with our science journals and record our observations and results in our journal.

For this activity you would need a glove, 5 cotton balls, and 5 different types of plant seeds. Label the fingers of the gloves, wet the cotton ball but rid the excess water, place one seed and one cotton ball in the correctly labeled finger of the glove and watch the seeds grow. You can plant cotton ball and seed in garden once they sprout. I chose this because I think that kids really enjoy growing their own plants. I have worked with children and done this before and they love to check on them daily and then be able to take home and grow. I also chose this because each individual child gets their own plants and individual participation for fairly inexpensive project. As we begin a lesson on plants, we would plant our own plants to watch them grown throughout the unit. We would also be able to journal about our plants and their changes over time.

This lesson involves watching plants grow from seeds. Students use a glove and place one seed in each of the fingers and thumb. A damp cotton ball is added to hydrate the seeds as they grow. Students can watch their seeds grow into seedlings and eventually transplant elsewhere to become full grown plants. I would add some things to this lesson (such as a daily or weekly journal to document the growth of the seeds). I chose this because during an observation I saw this lesson in action! The students (grade 1) loved it and were excited to see what their seeds were doing each day and excited to know that when the seedlings were big enough, they would be planting them outside their school. It's valuable to me because I think it's important for students to understand the plant cycle and to appreciate the act of growing things (not just trees or flowers, but we can grow our food too!) I would use this lesson with different books to get the students engaged; I would use journals to monitor and make predictions about our seedlings as well.

This is super interesting. It has many visuals and simple notes to explain the movement of objects.This could easily be a replacement for a power point for the day. There are also quizzes and games students can play or work through after the lesson to help assess their learning.

What do you mean "power point for the day"? Where in your instruction would this be used?

Learn about Newton's three laws that describe the properties of motion with this Science Channel interactive. Students must make sure to go through all laws, the bio section and glossary in order to do well on the quiz portion. This could easily turn into a lesson when each student is given a section to learn and present to the rest of the class before all taking the quiz. This would show comprehension on a personal level from self teaching as well as listening from peers.

This experiment uses rice, a plastic bottle, and a pencil to show the science behind friction. Friction is a force we all use daily but can not see it. This helps show and explain friction. This simple activity can also create an interest or desire to learn more about friction or learn why friction occurs. I chose this activity because I thought that it is a simple to use in the classroom but great way to show friction since friction can be hard to explain and you can not see it. I think this would be a great activity to start the lesson regarding motion and friction because it may spark a lot of questions.

This activity could be used at the end of a unit on rocks, minerals and the layers of the earth. Students build their own structures made out of mini marshmallows and toothpicks. The students then place their structure on top of the jello that's sitting in an aluminum pan. The students then shake the pan to see what structures survive the "earthquake". I chose this activity because I thought it would be a great hands on experiment for students to see the damaging effects of what can happen to buildings after an earthquake. Another plus to this activity, is possibly sparking the interest of future architects.

An engineering design challenge!

By creating a beach in a pan, students are able to make observations about how erosion occurs in nature. Place rock and damp sand at one end of the pan. Place a brick under the pan on the end with the sand so that the pan is tilting. Pour water into the opposite end of the pan. With a sponge in the water, press down on the sponge to create waves that hit the beach. The students will then be able to observe what happens to the sand and gravel after the waves continue to crash into the sand. I chose this resource because it allows the students to have a hands on activity and watch erosion take place systematically.

This movie visually explains the how hurricanes form and their movement. The movie defines "low pressure systems" and "tropical depression" that a student would hear a meteorologist use in a forecast. This movie could be used to introduce a lesson on storm systems that occur. I chose this BrainPOP movie because it seems as though students love the visual and retain the information given from BrainPOP.

This activity will be done at the end of our plant unit. For this activity, students will label the four different things that plants need to grow. Each need can be revealed by flipping up the leaf. I chose this resource because plant needs is a very important concept in first grade. We will spend a lot of time discussing the different needs, so this project will be a great review at the end of the unit. It is valuable to me because it allows me to see if the students understand the needs of a plant. While some of the components of this activity cost money, I will instead replicate it myself by copying the pattern. Once these projects are completed, I will display them in the classroom.

Good choice for the end of the unit, once students have learned through doing what plants need.

This activity is a great way to review what animals need to survive. We will do this project at the end of our animal lesson. Students will already know what animals need in order to survive. For this activity, students will fill in their foldable with the correct needs of animals and draw a picture to go along with each need. I chose this activity because foldables are very popular in elementary grades. Having the students write the needs on a foldable instead of a regular piece of paper makes the activity more fun for them. They also love to color, so they will be excited to draw pictures! These foldables would be very cute to display in the classroom, but are also easy for students to store in their desks and refer back to them later.

It is really easy to paste these kinds of foldables into science notebooks for long-term keeping, too!

This online activity will be done at the end of our science lesson on different environments. This game requires that students place the different animals, plants, and objects that would best survive in each given environment. Based on what the students have learned about different environments, they will be able to correctly place each object given. I selected this resource because animals and their environments is a huge content area in first grade. This online game will be available for students to play during centers. Whoever is at computer centers that day will be able to play this game. Having such a fun interactive game will allow them to be very engaged, but still learning at the same time.

This activity helps provide students with a simple understanding of why there are different types of soil. The students will be given a chewy chocolate chip cookie, and a regular crunchy one. They will examine each cookie and describe their characteristics and properties. Next, the students will smash the cookies with their hands to replicate the process of rocks weathering. Now that they have soil, they will compare the properties of both types of soil and form conclusions. Using a chewy chocolate chip cookie and a crunchy one represents the different minerals found in soils, and how it impacts its appearance, texture, and many other characteristics. Once the students have completed this activity, they will be able to enjoy a cookie! I selected this resource because I think it is a very straight forward way of learning about the different types of soils. Using these types of cookies really makes the concept easier to understand. This activity will not cost a lot of money, which makes it very valuable to me. We will do this activity at the end of our soil lesson in science.

This activity allows the students to get a better understanding of the water cycle while creating a fun art project. Students will color the printable water cycle stages and then paste them on the cloud template in order. The finished projects can be hung from the ceiling to display your class's work and make your classroom cute and colorful! Because the project is 3-D, it can be spun around which shows that the water cycle is constant and repeats itself. This activity will be done at the end of our water cycle unit in science. It will be one of the many activities done to make sure students understand the process of the cycle. I selected this resource because it is an exciting way to order the stages of the water cycle. Instead of just putting different pieces of paper in order, students can color, cut, and paste their stages on a giant cloud. The free downloadable printable also makes it valuable to me.

For this activity, ask the students what they think will happen if you heat a bar of ivory soap in the microwave. Make a graph of their predictions on the smartboard. Then heat the bar of ivory soap in the microwave for one minute. After you show the students what happened to the soap. Allow them to hold pieces of the "cloud" and make observations about texture and why they think the soap formed into a cloud. I chose this activity because this teacher also has a unit on weather connected to this activity that includes daily weather observations, non-fiction passages and writing organizers.

Who knew!? Very cool and surprising outcome. I am a little concerned that this activity might lead students away from true understanding of the formation of clouds, though. What do you think?

This activity shows how a cloud makes rain. For this activity you fill up a jar most of the way with water. Top the water with shaving cream. Drip food coloring into the shaving cream until eventually it fills up and starts dripping through the shaving cream. I chose this activity because there are a few simple items needed, shaving cream, water, jar, food coloring which could be found around the home and would be interesting for children. This would help simplify the understanding of clouds producing rain for young children. This activity can be used during the studying clouds/weather I would use during the lesson while explaining how clouds make rain for a visual.

This lesson is so simple and adorable! It's about teaching students the types of clouds and precipitation. It gives a very simple and eye friendly teacher outline for the types of clouds and directions for a demonstration. I think this project could be taken down or up a few notches to match the age group someone was teaching. It's a very wonderful lesson for active and visual learners. It provides a bit of hands on involvement and visual demonstrations about rain fall. I would use this lesson to teach to my class as a whole, but I would love to put my student's into groups to do the experiment. I think it would be a good time for them to practice the scientific process that we would've previously discussed, by allowing them to think critically and predict what would happen to the food coloring droplets and so on.

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.