Classroom Resources

Minerals are either elements or compounds with a crystalline structure that makeup rocks or are dissolved in water. They have many properties, including streak, color, luster, hardness, and structure.

The classroom resource provides a slide show that will describe minerals and their properties. There is also a short test that can be used to assess students' understanding. This resource can be used to provide background information before students perform their own observations and investigations.

Fossils are preserved traces or remains of living things. Paleontologists who study fossils look for teeth, bones, shells, petrified wood, molds and casts, traces or carbon shadows, or even entire animals.

The classroom resource provides a slide show that will describe fossils and how they form. There is also a short test that can be used to assess students' understanding. 

This clip describes the history of Independence Day and includes some fun facts about it. It explains the reason for the holiday and mentions several traditions, such as setting off fireworks.

This clip re-enacts the attacks of September 11, 2001. One of the flights vanishes off the radar, and air traffic control tries to communicate with it. As news starts pouring in of an attack on the World Trade Center, concerned air traffic controllers note that the flight is heading towards Washington D.C. and begin to suspect the worst.

English colonists, including John Smith and John Rolfe, arrive on new land via the Chesapeake Bay and are greeted by curious onlookers who are native to the land. This land will eventually become the Colony of Virginia. This scene foreshadows the end of the ancient civilization, the Powhatan.

In this video, historians gather to recount the historical significance and events of the Alamo.

Beware of squirrels! Experience the science of force and motion while learning that an author’s reason to write is either to inform or entertain the reader. In this interactive lesson, write a motion story and use motion words as you practice reading with a nutty squirrel.

Experiments are cool with a curious baby polar bear and his who, what, when, where, and why questions about the three states of matter. In this interactive lesson, students get hands-on with ice and record their observations through drawing and writing.

Students learn about four factors that describe different types of weather—temperature, wind, precipitation, and sunlight and clouds—as they explore various weather conditions and find evidence that describes each type of weather in this interactive lesson by WGBH. Interactive activities engage students as they observe and identify evidence of changing weather conditions and record factors evident in various types of weather.  

Bring on the ants! Players send leafcutter ants and mushrooms—two important rainforest decomposers—into the leaf litter that is built-up on the forest floor, in this interactive game from PLUM LANDING™. In the process, they make healthy new soil that will provide nutrients for other organisms.

Students use an interactive model to gather evidence about the visible Moon’s changing pattern over 30 days in this resource from Astronomy Education at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln. They use this evidence to record and make predictions about the Moon’s appearance in the sky.

Catch the wind with a breezy little dragonfly as you learn all about wind. Watch competitive kite-flying, learn why the wind blows, then make your own windsock and chart real-life wind data.

Learn about different water bodies and the various characteristics that make them distinct from one another in this multimedia gallery from WGBH. Water bodies are natural accumulations of water that makeup about three-quarters of Earth’s surface. Each one looks different when viewed from the ground (ground view) and from above (aerial view). Students can use the media in this gallery to explore, identify, and describe characteristics of various water bodies and to compare near-ground-level and aerial views of water bodies.

Use text features like captions, bold print, glossary, and index to learn about the hot and cold states of water and all about penguins. Students will read an informational text on what makes water freeze, look at cool penguin pictures, learn weird penguin names, and read how penguins enjoy the water in all of its states.

Meet a clingy red-eyed tree frog with a magnetic personality as you learn about magnets, magnetic forces, and how magnets make things move. Use main ideas and key phrases to help you read. Then, invent your own amazing magnet technology for the future.

Website for students that walks students through the process of how a bill becomes law. There are clickable links to the glossary, lesson plans, and annotation tools. 

Scrooge McDuck tells the story of how and why he emigrated to America. His parents believed in the American Dream and felt he deserved better, so they encouraged him to earn the money to move overseas. After working smarter, not harder, he earned the money he needed to move in a few months.

This scene simulates the moment Neil Armstrong exits the lunar lander on the Apollo 11 mission and steps foot on the moon, a first for human beings. This moment represented the culmination of centuries of mankind's ambitions and scientific understanding.

Weather is the condition of the outside air at any time or place, and it is constantly changing. The climate, on the other hand, gives the big picture, or what the weather is like over a long period of time.

The classroom resource provides a video that will describe the different characteristics of weather and climate. After utilizing this resource, the students can complete the short test to assess their understanding.

Clouds are made of water vapor and dust. When the water gets too heavy, it falls back to the Earth. Clouds are named according to their location and shape, such as cumulus, or puffy, stratus, or blanketed, and cirrus, or high and cold.

The classroom resource provides a slide show that will describe how clouds are formed and how precipitation is created. This resource can provide background information for students before they create their own models. There is also a short test that can be used to assess students' understanding.

Severe storms can really wreak some havoc on the Earth. Thunderstorms bring lightning and strong winds, but tornadoes, hurricanes, and blizzards can cause even greater destruction.

The classroom resource provides a slide show that will describe types of severe weather that can occur and their possible impacts on Earth. There is also a short test that can be used to assess students' understanding.

Oceans contain 97% of the water on the Earth and are home to a huge number of living creatures. Most of these creatures, about 90% of them, live near the water’s surface, where the pressure is not so great and they can get some light.

The classroom resource provides a slide show that will explain why the ocean is salty and describe different organisms that live in the ocean. There is also a short test that can be used to assess students' understanding.

Tides are the rise and fall of the Earth’s seas and oceans, and they are caused by the pull of gravity from the sun and moon. Tides cause changes in the depths of the water, meaning that seas and oceans are continually experiencing cycles of high and low tides.

The classroom resource provides a video that will describe how tides are created by the gravitational pull of the moon on Earth's oceans. There is also a short test that can be used to assess students' understanding.

The atmosphere is a blanket of gases surrounding the Earth. The gases are classified according to their temperature differences. The weight of those gases pressing down on earth is what creates air pressure.

The classroom resource provides a video that will describe the different layers of Earth's atmosphere, how the atmosphere supports life, and how Earth's weather occurs in the atmosphere. There is also a short test that can be used to assess students' understanding.

The Earth has four seasons: winter, spring, summer, and fall. The seasons are caused by the Earth's revolution around the Sun and the way the Earth tilts on its axis. Seasons are not the same everywhere. They vary by climate and region.

The classroom resource provides a slide show that will describe how Earth's axial tilt and orbit around the sun create the four seasons. This resource can serve as background information for students as they create their own models. There is also a short test that can be used to assess students' understanding.

Changes in air pressure, caused by air’s height above sea level, temperature, and amount of water vapor, cause wind. The Earth’s rotation also helps. It causes the Coriolis Effect, which makes the wind blow on a curved path.

The classroom resource provides a video that will explain how changes in air pressure create wind in the atmosphere and how the Earth's rotation causes global wind belts to curve. 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.

The sun is an average size star and the center of our solar system. One of the things surrounding it is an asteroid belt, and the four planets inside that belt are called the inner planets.

The classroom resource provides a slide show that will describe the components of the inner section of our solar system: the sun, the asteroid belt, and the four inner planets. This resource can provide background information for students before they create their own models. There is also a short test that can be used to assess students' understanding.

Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune are the outer planets of our solar system. There is a dwarf planet called Pluto out there, too!

The classroom resource provides a slide show that will describe the components of the outer section of our solar system: the four outer planets and the dwarf planet, Pluto. This resource can provide background information for students before they create their own models. There is also a short test that can be used to assess students' understanding.

Gravitational force is the constant force of attraction between the masses of two objects. The attraction between objects and the Earth is called gravity. Weight is caused by gravity: it is the measurement of gravity’s force on an object’s mass.

The classroom resource provides a video that will explain how gravity and inertia work together to keep the planets in our solar system revolving around the sun. This resource can provide background information for students before they create their own models. There is also a short test that can be used to assess students' understanding.

Earth’s moon reflects the sun, and so it is visible at night. It also rotates at the same rate that it orbits, 27 days, which means that we only see one side of it. The moon has one-sixth of the gravity of Earth and no atmosphere at all!

The classroom resource provides a slide show that will explain the characteristics of Earth's moon. There is also a short test that can be used to assess students' understanding.

As the Earth rotates, light from the sun hits different parts, giving us day and night. During its orbit, the Earth’s tilt on its axis also causes the two hemispheres to be different distances from the sun, and that gives us seasons.

The classroom resource provides a video that will describe how Earth's rotation and revolution cause day and night and seasonal cycles. This resource can provide background information for students before they create their own models. There is also a short test that can be used to assess students' understanding.

The universe describes space and all of the planets, stars, galaxies, and other matter contained there. It is so big that some scientists believe that it might go on forever.

The classroom resource provides a video that will describe the components of the universe and their relationship to each other. This resource can provide background information for students before they create their own models. There is also a short test that can be used to assess students' understanding.

Navigate around the island to explore various landforms and water bodies in this interactive game from PLUM LANDING. Journey around the island and pick up trash to unlock information—including videos and ground-level and aerial images—about specific landforms and water bodies. Students use the game and associated supports to observe, identify, and record characteristics of common landforms and water bodies as they navigate and represent the landscape from an aerial perspective on a map.

Matter is anything that has mass and takes up space. That is why mass and volume are the properties of matter.

The classroom resource provides a video that will describe the properties and characteristics of matter. This resource can provide background information for students before they conduct their own investigations. There is also a short test that can be used to assess students' understanding.