A wave is energy in motion or energy moving from point to point. To describe the traits of a wave, there are a few terms you need to know.
Students will choose a term in the activity to display its description in the diagram.
Students will play the role of the audio engineer who monitors and adjusts the audio levels for a production. This animated interactive job exploration experience connects schoolwork with real work and familiarizes students with some of the skills involved in audio engineering. They will also understand the parts of waves and that the intensity (loudness or softness) of sound is determined by the amplitude of the sound wave.
Through the use of an experiment, PBS Learning Media videos, and interactives, students will learn how heat is transferred through convection, radiation, and conduction. Students will develop a model to demonstrate their understanding of conduction, convection, and radiation.
In this lesson, students will be able to identify the producers, consumers, and decomposers and sort them with their group to create a food chain.
In this lesson, students will examine the various parts of flowers through the use of dissection. At the end of the lesson, students will play a quick game of pollinator tag to help students understand how pollination works.
In this video from PBSLearningMedia, students learn exploring our world is fun. Abby Brown loves to help kids have fun while learning. In this segment, Abby teaches kids about many types of transportation and how people and things get from one place to another. Sometimes, transportation is just for fun.
Learn about kids who are helping the environment by reducing waste in their school. This Cyberchase-presented video features P.S. 110's Green Team who is helping their school recycle and compost more. P.S. 110 is a Greenpoint Eco-School, a local variation of a national Eco-Schools USA program for grades PreK–12 that combines the effective green management of school grounds, facilities, and curriculum to empower today’s students for a sustainable tomorrow. Refer to the accompanying discussion questions and teaching tips for ideas on using this video to help students consider ways to reduce waste and help the environment.
For more environmental education resources, visit the Human Impact on the Environment collection.
Your skeleton gives your body a supporting frame and protects your internal organs. The skeletal system is attached to the muscular system, and they work together, allowing your body to move.
This resource presents a short slide show about the human skeletal system. This resource could serve as background information before students construct a model of organ systems. After utilizing this resource, the students can complete the short test to assess their understanding.
Children explore reusing and recycling materials, and wind power, in this lesson plan featuring hands-on activities and a video excerpt from Curious George. They begin by watching a video in which Curious George gathers trash to help clean up the city streets and discovers that he can create something special with his found treasures. Children then use recycled materials to build toy boats that can sail. They discuss ways to make objects move with wind, then use child-generated wind power to move their boats in water. They conclude by sharing their boats with each other and brainstorming other ways in which they could recycle materials in the classroom.
This lesson is part of the Curious George STEM Collection.
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.
This is how you touch: Nerve cells throughout your body respond to external stimuli by sending nerve impulses to your brain. To put it another way, your skin’s nerve cells respond to the things you touch, allowing you to feel them.
This resource presents a short slide show about how humans interpret and respond to things they touch. After utilizing this resource, the students can complete the short test to assess their understanding.
All day long, electrical impulses are being sent through the entire body by way of the nervous system. The central components of the nervous system that make it all work are the brain, spinal cord, and nerve endings.
The classroom resource provides a video that will describe the parts and processes of the nervous circulatory system. The information presented in this video can provide background knowledge before students create their own models. There is also a short test that can be used to assess students' understanding.
Your muscular system helps your vital organs function, and it also performs another very important job. The muscular system is attached to your skeletal system, and that is what allows you to move.
This resource presents a short slide show about the human muscular system. The information presented in this video can provide background knowledge before students create their own models. After utilizing this resource, the students can complete the short test to assess their understanding.
In this Martha Speaks interactive story, students learn how the choices we make about our trash have different consequences for our environment. A discarded soup can can end up in a landfill, whereas a reused or recycled can could become something new. When used as a part of Martha’s True Stories Buddies Program, buddy pairs engage with the interactive story, then create an Advice Column that offers ways to reuse, repurpose, or compost old things. To familiarize yourself with the program, begin by reading the Martha's True Stories Buddies Program: Overview.
The many parts of your immune system work together to defend your body against diseases. White blood cells in your blood vessels and lymph vessels help protect your body by killing intruders and getting rid of harmful materials.
This resource presents a short slide show about the human immune system. After utilizing this resource, the students can complete the short test to assess their understanding.
Observe how wind and water reshape the face of Earth’s surface with these slideshows. Students will use evidence from videos and images to observe and describe how wind and water contribute to natural events that are constantly reshaping Earth’s surface.
Humans and animals share some common features. We use our eyes to see, our nose to smell, and our ears to hear. Animals use those same features to help them survive by finding food and sense danger. A Tail Like This will help children learn more about the features of a few common animals they may see every day.
Observe how objects in a dark space can only be seen when light enters the space in this interactive game from PEEP and the Big Wide World. The interactive game offers opportunities for students to find objects in a very dark space by shining a beam of light around the area.
Support materials include: Background Reading, Teaching Tips, and Discussion Questions. This resource was developed through WGBH’s Bringing the Universe to America’s Classrooms project, in collaboration with NASA.
This novice low to novice high French lesson starts off with a brief grammar discussion about cognates and false cognates. Students then play an online interactive BINGO activity as students observe characteristics of the French language. The lesson wrap-ups with a series of French and English questions. The lesson is guided by a prepared google slide presentation.
In this Emmy Award-winning documentary film co-presented by HBO and The Museum of Jewish Heritage, a new generation of students is introduced to Holocaust history. When 10-year-old Elliott asks his 90-year-old great-grandfather, Jack, about the number tattooed on his arm, he sparks an intimate conversation about Jack’s life that spans happy memories of childhood in Poland, the loss of his family, surviving Auschwitz, and finding a new life in America. Their tender exchange is woven with historical footage and hand-painted animation to tell a heartbreaking story of Jewish life in Eastern Europe before and during the Holocaust. The video is approximately 19 minutes in length.
This free, interactive website helps middle and high school-aged students explore Holocaust history and themes of identity and personal responsibility. Part of the larger Museum of Jewish Heritage Holocaust Curriculum website, Coming of Age During the Holocaust features first-person accounts of young people who survived the Holocaust, integrating compelling videos, narratives, and primary documents with online discussions and engaging activities.
In this novice-mid to novice-high activity, students will participate in an interpersonal conversation as they share details about their daily routines. This lesson provides a blank schedule for students to fill out before comparing their schedules with peers.
This lesson provides an introduction to the study of the Holocaust and can be used as the first lesson of a larger unit, or a stand-alone lesson to discuss essential content and themes. The Holocaust refers to the systematic murder of six million Jews, and millions of others, by Nazi Germany and its collaborators during World War II. The Nazi Party came to power in 1933. Its leader, Adolf Hitler, was appointed chancellor of Germany and began to target Jews. Roma/Sinti, those with physical or mental disabilities, LGBTQ people, political dissidents, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and others were considered enemies by the Nazis and not worthy of human rights.
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.
The ear is specially designed to change sound waves into signals the brain can understand, allowing you to hear. That is not all they do, though. Your ears also help you balance!
This classroom resource provides a video that will describe the structures of the ear and how they work together to allow us to hear. After utilizing this resource, the students can complete the short test to assess their understanding.
Investigate a prairie inhabitant—the bee. Students gather information about a bee’s internal and external parts and use this information as evidence to make a claim about how the bee’s internal and external parts work together as a system to ensure survival. The lesson supports diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility by focusing on an insect familiar to learners in most environments and providing contextual definitions for vocabulary as well as illustrations and video, helping learners from areas without prairie to engage with and understand the lesson.
This NET Nebraska student lesson uses the photographs, observation notes, and online blog from the Nature Conservancy’s Science Director, Chris Helzer. Helzer's photography is featured in his book, Hidden Prairie: Photographing Life in One Square Meter.
Imagine your favorite food. Do you know why you like it so much? It is all up to your sense of taste. Find out how it works!
The tongue has thousands of taste receptors that respond to chemicals in the food you eat. Nerves in your tongue and nose send signals to your brain, allowing you to taste the food you eat.
This resource presents a short slide show about how humans detect and interpret taste. After utilizing this resource, the students can complete the short test to assess their understanding.
Students observe, compare, and describe waves, using videos and images of actual waves as well as model diagrams. This interactive lesson engages students in noticing the shape of (transverse) waves and learning how to describe and measure the amplitude and wavelength of waves.
Students will learn about the four phases of the water cycle, the ways in which watersheds are crucial to healthy water, and the best ways to manage local watersheds with this interactive lesson.
What are the “physical properties” of matter, and how can they be measured and observed? Students will learn about some basic characteristics of matter—including those that depend on the amount of a substance and those that don’t—with this interactive lesson.
Students use and develop models of the Earth–Sun systems to demonstrate an understanding of how the Sun illuminates the hemispheres differently during summer and winter. Visual supports (video, images), data graphs, and informational text provide students with multiple entry points to investigating the phenomenon of the changing duration of daylight. This interactive provides the context and sources of data students can use to gather evidence that supports an explanation of why summer days have more daylight than winter days.
The associated lesson plan Investigating Why Summer Days Have More Daylight provides more support for teachers and students, including materials for diverse learners.
Students make observations and analyze data to investigate how the duration of daylight changes throughout a year. They consider their own experiences in addition to evidence gathered from videos, data tables, and a line graph to describe the pattern in the changing duration of daylight from January to December.
The associated lesson plan Investigating Daylight Throughout a Year provides more support for teachers and students, including handouts and materials for diverse learners, as well as information for customizing the data to your location.
Students investigate the relationship between daily weather and seasonal weather. Students will read about how weather data is collected, then interpret examples of weekly and monthly weather data to find seasonal patterns. Visual supports (images), maps, and data alongside informational text provide students with the context they need to recognize differences between daily and seasonal weather.
The associated lesson plan, Investigating Daily and Seasonal Weather, provides additional support for teachers and students, including handouts and materials for diverse learners.
Students compare the seasonal weather at their location with another U.S. location. They interpret temperature and precipitation data maps, collecting and recording the data for the two locations in order to find patterns and make comparisons. Visual supports (video, images), data maps, and informational text provide students with the context they need to identify seasonal weather at two locations.
The associated lesson plan Investigating Seasonal Temperature and Precipitation Variations provides more support for teachers and students, including handouts and materials for diverse learners.
The human genome serves as an instruction manual for life, with its own distinct letters, alphabet, sentences, and chapters. Learn about the genome, nucleotides, DNA, and genes with this interactive lesson.
