Classroom Resources

This is a lesson plan from Google for Education, Applied Digital Skills. During this lesson, students collaborate to create a presentation about the Space Shuttle Discovery.  As they complete the lesson, students will build a slide presentation using a starter project, tell a story using information about the Space Shuttle Discovery from Google Arts & Culture, and explore content in Google Arts & Culture to find information. Students will be able to answer the following essential question: What is significant historically, scientifically, and culturally about the Space Shuttle Discovery?

In this lesson, students place hot and cold colored water into room-temperature water. They observe that the hot water floats on the room-temperature water and the cold water sinks. Students will combine the concepts of temperature, molecular motion, and density to learn that hot water is less dense than room-temperature water and that cold water is denser.

Students will be able to explain, on the molecular level, how heating and cooling affect the density of water.

In this lesson, students will be able to explain that wearing a coat helps keep you warm because it blocks your body’s heat from moving away from you to where it’s cold. The teacher discusses whether a thick or thin jacket helps students stay warmer in cold weather. Students see a demonstration in which a container with warm water is placed in cold water. The warm water cools down quickly. Students then design and test a “coat” for the container to keep the water warm longer. Students watch an animation explaining why a coat helps keep them warm in the cold.

Students have likely observed that the Moon is at different positions throughout the day. However, they likely have not seen the full arc of its path in a day to recognize a pattern. In this lesson, students will build on their own observations and previous learning of Earth’s rotation, observe a time-lapse video of a moonrise to moonset, explore a simulation of the Moon’s path, and interpret physical and digital models. By the end of the lesson, students will be able to construct an explanation about why the Moon appears to moves across the sky from east to west, and recognize that the phenomenon is a pattern. 

Investigate how the orbits and relative positions of the Moon, the Sun, and Earth produce eclipses using this interactive lesson. Students will work with a variety of models of the Earth-Sun–Moon system to understand the mechanics of lunar and solar eclipses and explain why they are rare.

This resource was developed through WGBH’s Bringing the Universe to America’s Classrooms project, in collaboration with NASA.

The associated lesson plan Experience a Solar Eclipse includes more supports for teachers and students, including handouts and materials for diverse learners.

Players strive to create a balanced mangrove ecosystem in which each animal has enough food to survive over a period of 12 days, in this interactive game from PLUM LANDING™. Players see how the different species of plants and animals in a mangrove swamp depend on one another. They also experiment with how changing the amount of one resource affects the whole ecosystem.

Light is a very important energy source that keeps us warm and lets us see the world. Light travels in waves in bundles of energy called photons. Those photons contain all seven colors in the rainbow. Grab a prism and check them out!

The classroom resource provides a video that describes light, how it moves, and how it helps us see. This resource can provide background information for students before they construct their own models and carry out their own investigations. There is also a short test that can be used to assess students' understanding.

Earth’s most magnificent and enormous landforms are all on the ocean floor. Volcanoes and earthquakes change the ocean floor, creating new landforms. Erosion on land also deposits minerals and animal matter on the ocean floor.

The classroom resource provides a slide show that will describe the landforms on the ocean floor and how they are created through geologic processes. There is also a short test that can be used to assess students' understanding.

Dig into reading practice and meet a cute little mole who loves dirt. Learn about finding the main idea in an informational text about the components that make up soil and get the dirt on how details can support the main idea. 

The nose is your body’s instrument for smelling. Tiny pieces of matter are sucked into the nose and identified as smells. Nerve cells then tell your brain what you are smelling.

This resource presents a short slide show about how humans detect and interpret scents. After utilizing this resource, the students can complete the short test to assess their understanding.

In this video from NOVA’s Energy Lab, learn about renewable energy sources and renewable energy technologies. A renewable source of energy is so plentiful that it can be considered limitless. Scientists and engineers are working on alternative energy technologies that make use of renewable energy sources (such as solar, geothermal, and tidal energy) and have less impact on the environment. The sun is our greatest energy resource; solar technologies use its energy directly in the form of light or heat, while other technologies use its energy after it has been converted into another form.

This video is available in both English and Spanish audio, along with corresponding closed captions.

In this video, you'll learn that molecules need to have both charge asymmetry and geometric asymmetry to be polar, and that charge asymmetry is caused by a difference in electronegativities. You'll also learn how to notate a dipole moment (or charge separation) of a molecule, the physical mechanism behind like dissolves like, and why water is so good at fostering life on Earth.

Hans Christian Oersted had just discovered the connection between electricity and magnetism. Meanwhile, a French physicist named André-Marie Ampère was experimenting with some wires, trying to learn more about the connection between currents and the magnetic fields they create. Ampère would discover one of the most fundamental laws of electromagnetism. This video will discuss Ampère’s Law.

Students brainstorm how land is used along a river in their watershed. They arrange pieces representing places along a river from source to mouth, and discuss impacts "downstream" in a watershed.

Students explore drivers of extinction across Earth’s major biomes, including human-to environment interactions that threaten biodiversity and seek solutions to mitigate habitat loss and prevent extinction. As a result, they develop research-based action steps critical to protecting a certain species and incorporate key findings into their culminating conservation pamphlets. This lesson is part of the Engaging in the Fight Against Extinction unit.

The teacher will present an informational text from the website, ReadWorks. Students will interact with this non-fiction text by annotating the text digitally. The students will answer the questions associated with the article as an assessment. This learning activity will help explain the impact of selective breeding on the appearance of desired traits in organisms. 

The teacher will present an informational text from the website, ReadWorks. The students and teacher can interact with this non-fiction text by annotating the text digitally. The students will answer the questions associated with the article as an assessment. This learning activity can be used to provide information regarding geologic events that happen over a short period of time, serve as reinforcement after students have already learned this concept, or be used as an assessment at the conclusion of a lesson.

This interactive game will lead students through the carbon cycle and describe the different reservoirs where carbon is held on Earth. Students will take on the role of a carbon atom and travel through the cycle until they visit all of the possible reservoirs. 

The classroom resource provides a video that will describe a variety of plant adaptations. After utilizing this resource, the students can complete the short test to assess their understanding.

The teacher will present an informational text from the website, ReadWorks. The students and teacher can interact with this non-fiction text by annotating the text digitally. The students will answer the questions associated with the article as an assessment. This learning activity can be used to explain how the sun illuminates the moon at night, serve as reinforcement after students have already learned this concept, or be used as an assessment at the conclusion of a lesson.

Steve Trash teaches kids about science with fun and magic. The show is filmed in Alabama.

You find water in oceans, rivers, lakes and ponds, in clouds and rain and snow. Explore how all of these are connected through a continuous cycle in the natural world. Then, Steve suggests ways to prevent litter and other destructive types of pollution. After all, it's no fun to play in the water if its full of garbage.

In this lesson, students will observe the dissolving of the sugar coating from an M&M when it is placed in water. Students will then help design an experiment to see if the type of liquid the M&M is placed in affects how much of the coating dissolves.

Students will be able to explain, on the molecular level, how the polar characteristic of water and sugar interact so that water dissolves sugar. Students will be able to identify and control the variables in their experiment. Students will also be able to explain why a nonpolar liquid, such as mineral oil, is not good at dissolving sugar.

In this lesson, students will be able to plan and carry out an investigation to compare the amount of gas produced in reactions between baking soda and baking powder when vinegar is added. Students will be able to explain that mixing substances can cause a chemical reaction, which results in the formation of a new substance. Students will also be able to explain that substances react in characteristic ways and that the way a substance reacts can be used to identify the substance. 

This lesson is designed to help students understand that vibrations are responsible for the sounds we hear. Additionally, they learn that sound vibrations can travel through different mediums. Students experience vibrations using several of their senses: They feel the vibrations in their throat as they hum music, and on their lips as they play their straw kazoos. They see that when a ruler is struck, it vibrates, producing a sound. Drums are also used to show vibrations, as students watch grains of rice bouncing on the surface of the drum after it has been hit, and a laser pointer creates a laser show in the classroom when reflected off a vibrating mirror. Finally, students design a test that uses their sense of hearing to judge the effectiveness of different solids to transmit sound vibrations.

Students explore similarities and differences in the life cycle of organisms and are introduced to the process of metamorphosis. This lesson deepens students' understanding of the similarities and differences in the life cycles of organisms. The lesson begins with a reading of Eric Carle's The Very Hungry Caterpillar. Next, students use a video to study the developmental stages of frogs, dragonflies, and butterflies. They compare insect and frog life cycles to each other and to the stages of human development.

May the force be with you as you learn about using text features (like captions, bold print, subheadings, icons, and glossaries) to find facts about the force known as gravity! A big silly walrus will travel with you through this lesson.

Players take on the role of bilbies, rabbit-sized Australian marsupials, as they race through the landscape looking for food and avoiding predators—and trying not to run into rocks—in this interactive game from PLUM LANDING™. They also learn about the bilby’s life cycle and the plants and animals that share its ecosystem.

An atom is a tiny particle in matter, and atoms are made of protons, neutrons, and electrons. Some matter, like your body or your book, is made of lots of different kinds of atoms, but elements are made up of only one kind of atom.

The classroom resource provides a video that will explain atoms and how they are made of smaller particles called protons, electrons, and neutrons. This resource can provide background information for students before they construct their own models and/or carry out their own investigations. There is also a short test that can be used to assess students' understanding.

Rock is the hard, solid material, consisting of one or more minerals, that make up the Earth. Rocks continuously change from one type to another through the rock cycle process. There are three types of rocks: igneous, metamorphic, and sedimentary.

The classroom resource provides a video that will describe how rocks are formed through physical and chemical processes in the rock cycle. There is a karaoke song that students can learn to help them remember the steps in the rock cycle process. There is also a short test that can be used to assess students' understanding. Students can use the information presented in this video to plan their own investigations.

Students explore how butterflies change and grow throughout their life cycle in this interactive lesson from NATURE. Through captivating video content and interactive activities, students will discover the amazing transformation process from a tiny caterpillar into a beautiful butterfly.

For more resources from NATURE, check out the collection page.

Angiosperm plants reproduce by producing seeds inside a flower. There are two kinds of angiosperms: monocotyledons and dicotyledons.

The classroom resource provides a video that will describe the process of reproduction of flowering plants. After utilizing this resource, the students can complete the short test to assess their understanding.

In this episode, Hank talks about collisions between molecules and atoms, activation energy, writing rate laws, equilibrium expressions, reactions mechanics, and rate-determining steps. Have you ever been to a Demolition Derby? Then you have an idea of how molecular collisions happen.

So we've all heard of relativity, right? What is relativity? How does it relate to light? Motion? In this episode of Crash Course Physics, Dr. Shini talks to us about perspective, observation, and how relativity is really weird.

When you hear the word, "work," what is the first thing you think of? Maybe sitting at a desk? Maybe plowing a field? Maybe working out? Work is a word that has a little bit of a different meaning in Physics. In this video, Dr. Shini is going to walk us through it. She will also discuss energy and power. 

Students are challenged, using everyday objects, to create simple machines to complete specific tasks. They are introduced to the concept that simple machines make work easier. Students will complete challenges using levers, pulleys, wheel and axles, and robots.