Science Lessons

Science Lessons 

The National Science Teachers Association provides a lesson plan on creating paper airplanes. Within the lesson viewers will find that students have the ability to create an airplane and adapt the design of the airplane to make it fly at a greater distance. Students also can fill in a chart comparing two airplane designs to determine which airplane flew the longest.  

Discovery Education is an informational website that also provides numerous lesson plans. The lesson plan that I chose in particular was The Era of Inventions . The lesson asks students to complete research to determine three  important transportation milestones over the years, starting from 1903. Students need to be able to explain the milestone and how it is relevant to people’s lives.

The National Park Service has a variety of lesson plan ideas for grades 1 – 5. The lesson plan that I chose is called Secrets of the Past . Within this lesson, students will study the Badlands rock layers and learn about how the rock layers were deposited over the years. Students will also learn how weathering and erosion shape the Badlands.

 The U.S. Geological Survey website provides viewers with an abundant of lesson plans. In particular, that lesson plan that peaked my interest was Rock Stories . Within this lesson, students will learn about Sedimentary Rocks. Students will then be given Sedimentary Rocks in which they will create descriptions of the rocks. Using prior knowledge, students will go outside and find a rock and determine the type of rock and state what makes it that type of rock.

The EekoWorld website presents a lesson plan called Trash, Trash, and More Trash. Trash, Trash, and More Trash allows students to investigate a bag of trash to determine which contents actually belong in a landfill. Students will then create two class posters that show which items are recyclable and what items are not recyclable. 

The Smithsonian Education website provides viewers with a variety of lesson plans based off of the students grade levels. The lesson that I chose is called Here Come the Sunflowers. Within this lesson, students will have the opportunity to learn about sunflowers, and plant sunflower seeds. Students will also learn how sunflowers are an important resource and what foods that we consume in everyday life  that have sunflowers in them. 

The Humane Society Website provides students with various activities and lessons to create so that students can become more knowledge about animals. The particular lesson that I chose is called Who Lives in the Prairie?. Within this lesson, students will identify why prairie dogs are keystone species. Students will also be explaining a prairie food web.

Dinosaurs! After a read-aloud of Harry and the Bucketful of Dinosaurs, students will discuss the different types of dinosaurs in the book. Students will then be split up into two groups, a herbivore group, and a carnivore group and be given specific dinosaurs within each group. Student will complete research on their given dinosaur. If time is allotted students can create dinosaur posters to display within the classroom.

The Making Science Fun website allows viewers to learn about geodes, and then make their own geodes within the classroom. It would be best to complete the Incredible Egg Geode lesson after a unit on rocks and minerals.  I have seen this lesson implemented within the classroom and the students absolutely loved it! 

The Science Kids website allows viewers to learn about a variety of topics such as water and ice. The lesson plan that I chose from this particular site allows viewers to cut ice cubes in half. Throughout the lesson, a piece of ice gets cut directly in half by the pressure of fishing line and melts.  To further this activity, a discussion can be used to describe how this activity is related to ice skating.