During this lesson, the students will learn how matter transfers within an ecosystem and within the environment
*This lesson can be taught over a two-day period.
This lesson results from a collaboration between the Alabama State Department of Education and ASTA.
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 students with information about liquid water on Earth, serve as reinforcement after students have already learned this concept, or be used as an assessment at the conclusion of a lesson.
In this video, Hank gives us a tour of the most important table ever, including the life story of the obsessive man who championed it, Dmitri Mendeleev. The periodic table of elements is a concise, information-dense catalog of all of the different sorts of atoms in the universe, and it has a wealth of information to tell us if we can learn to read it.
Sensitive: This resource contains material that may be sensitive for some students. Teachers should exercise discretion in evaluating whether this resource is suitable for their class.
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.
Students will review states of matter - solids, liquids, and gases. They will compare states of matter to theme and variations in music. They will listen to Turkish March by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and identify the theme and variations.
This learning activity should be used during a lesson on using models to construct an explanation of how the force exerted by a rubber band changes as the band is stretched. This learning activity can be used as an assessment.
This activity results from the ALEX Resource Development Summit.
Matter is not created nor destroyed; it simply changes from one form to another. This law of conservation of mass challenges elementary students’ ideas about matter, because many children may think that matter is created or destroyed in a chemical reaction. In this lesson, students will challenge their preconceptions about matter by experimenting with physical and chemical changes to determine that the total weight of the matter does not change. Students will use math to show that the total weight of matter is equal to the sum of the weight of its component parts, and they will graph this information to show that the weight of matter is conserved during physical and chemical changes.
This lesson results from a collaboration between the Alabama State Department of Education and ASTA.
The classroom resource provides a video that will describe the steps in the water cycle. There is also a short test that can be used to assess students' understanding. Students can use the information presented in this video to create their own model of this biogeochemical cycle.
Life is chaos and the universe tends toward disorder. But why? If you think about it, there are only a few ways for things to be arranged in an organized manner, but there are nearly infinite other ways for those same things to be arranged. Simple rules of probability dictate that it's much more likely for stuff to be in one of the many disorganized states than in one of the few organized states. This tendency is so unavoidable that it's known as the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics. Obviously, disorder is a pretty big deal in the universe and that makes it a pretty big deal in chemistry. It's such a big deal that scientists have a special name for it: entropy. In chemistry, entropy is the measure of molecular randomness, or disorder. For the next thirteen minutes, Hank hopes you will embrace the chaos as he teaches you about entropy.
Observe fast and slow events that change the face of Earth’s surface with this slideshow. Students will use evidence from videos and images to describe how changes on Earth’s surface can happen quickly or slowly. Students will have the opportunity to compare Earth’s surface before and after the occurrence of a natural event and describe how it has changed.
In this lesson, students will be able to explain that wind is air that is moving and that air is made up of tiny particles called molecules. Students will also be able to explain that when the wind blows, it is the molecules hitting objects that make the objects move. The class has a short discussion about air and wind and is introduced to the idea that air is made of tiny particles that we cannot see and that wind is moving air. Students see an animation showing what causes wind and why wind makes objects move. Students do an activity showing that a heavy strong base can make things more stable in the wind.
Students will create a cell model and communicate/present their projects to the class. Students will upload their pictures on a free program called Padlet. Padlet is an application to create an online bulletin board that you can use to display information for any topic. Easily create an account and build a new board. You can add images, links, videos, and more. Students will evaluate their classmates' projects and presentations.
This activity was created as a result of the ALEX Resource Development Summit.
The lesson will begin by engaging students with a video of a natural landform in Alabama called Neversink Pit. Students will then research the natural and human-made causes and effects of sinkhole formation in Alabama. Lastly, students will create a video PSA to communicate information about sinkhole dangers and methods to protect people and property from sinkhole damage.
This lesson results from a collaboration between the Alabama State Department of Education and ASTA.
The teacher will present two pieces of informational text from the website, ReadWorks. Students will interact with these non-fiction texts by annotating the text digitally. The students will answer the questions associated with the articles as an assessment. This learning activity will describe two different threatened species, one plant, and one animal species, and explain how changes in the species' ecosystem led to a population shift.
In this video, Hank takes us on a tour of the earliest pioneers in the field of atomic theory. From Leucippus to Heisenberg to you--the story of atomic chemistry is all wibbly-wobbly and amazing.
Natural resources are things occurring in nature, like air, water, sunlight, and crops, that can be used to fulfill a need. Some natural resources, like metals, plastics, fossil fuels, and old-growth forests, are non-renewable, meaning they cannot be replaced in our lifetime.
The classroom resource provides a slide show that will identify natural resources and explain how some resources are renewable and non-renewable. There is also a short test that can be used to assess students' understanding.
In this lesson, students will be able to explain that if they mix baking soda with two different substances in separate containers and observe different signs of chemical reactions, it must be because the two substances are different. The substances must be made from different molecules, which react differently with baking soda. Students conduct a reaction with citric acid and baking soda in a universal indicator solution. The resulting chemical reaction produces a gas, causes a color change with an indicator, and results in a decrease in temperature. Students then carry out a second reaction with calcium chloride and baking soda in the universal indicator solution. In this example, students observe the production of both a gas and a solid, a color change with the indicator, and a slight increase in temperature. Students reason that since baking soda was reacted with two different substances, it makes sense that the reactions they observed were different. Finally, students conclude that different substances have characteristic chemical reactions and that these reactions can be used to identify a substance.
In this lesson, students will learn the characteristics of the five geographic regions of Alabama by researching the regions using maps, the Internet, and books. The students will also make a salt dough map depicting Alabama’s land regions.
This lesson was created as a part of the Alabama History Education Initiative, funded by a generous grant from the Malone Family Foundation in 2009.
Author Information: Ivy Murry and DeShaundra Johnson (Cohort 1: 2009-2010); Holly Hill Elementary and Hall-Kent; Elementary Enterprise City Schools and Homewood City Schools; Enterprise, AL and Homewood, AL
Students will review collecting data and bar graphs by watching a BrainPOP video. After a digital read-aloud of the book Insect Pollinators digital book, students will choose which insect that he/she thinks would make the best pollinator. Students will represent the data collected by creating and drawing a bar graph.
This activity was created as a result of the ALEX Resource Development Summit.
In this lesson, students will demonstrate an understanding of the transfer of matter (energy) in various ecosystems by constructing a model food chain. In the food chain, students must show how an ecosystem provides energy from a producer to the consumers and ending with a decomposer.
The students will begin by working in groups to compete with their peers by sorting food chain picture cards (producers, consumers, decomposers of an ecosystem) in the correct order. Students will be assessed at the conclusion of the lesson with a multiple choice exit ticket quiz.
This unit was created as part of the ALEX Interdisciplinary Resource Development Summit.
This resource provides guides and examples to help start your own school garden.
This DragonflyTV segment introduces renewable energy engineer Sandra Begay-Campbell, who works to bring alternative energy to remote parts of the Navajo Nation. A Navajo herself, Begay-Campbell works with the U.S. Department of Energy and the Navajo Nation to find energy solutions. This video is also available in Spanish.
In this interactive lesson, students explore how things are the same and how they are different as you compare and contrast information with videos and text (and a slimy snail!). Play recycling games, read secret ‘snail trail’ messages, and learn why we must reduce our landfills.
Gymnosperms are the oldest seed-bearing plants. There are four types of gymnosperms: gnetophytes, cycads, conifers, and ginkgos. Learn about gymnosperms’ distinctive appearance and unique life cycle here.
The classroom resource provides a video that will describe the function of seeds in seed-bearing plants. After utilizing this resources, the students can complete the short test to assess their understanding.
Explore real-life and animated views illustrating the daily patterns of motion of the Sun, Moon, and stars in the sky. Students engage with a variety of media such as an interactive storybook, time-lapse videos, and images to identify evidence of motion and predict future appearances of the Sun, Moon, and stars.
In this lesson, students will focus on the first 20 elements of the periodic table. Students will first look at a diagram and animation to understand the basic pattern of the arrangement of electrons on energy levels around an atom. Students will be given cards with information about the electrons and energy levels for each of the first 20 atoms. They will try to correctly match cards with each element.
Students will be able to interpret the information given in the periodic table to describe the arrangement of electrons on the energy levels around an atom.
This lesson is adapted from a lesson entitled, "Marble Run", from the NASA Education Guide Amusement Park Physics with a NASA Twist.
Students will explore the effects of force, speed, motion, and gravity in creating a roller coaster track for a marble.
This lesson was created as part of the 2016 NASA STEM Standards of Practice Project, a collaboration between the Alabama State Department of Education and NASA Marshall Space Flight Center.
In this activity, students will be placed in groups with each group being assigned to test a different variable related to plant growth. Students will carry out an investigation using one variable at a time (water, light, soil, or air), to determine the growth needs of plants. At the conclusion of the activity, students will be able to identify things that a plant requires to grow.
This learning activity was created as a result of the Girls Engaged in Math and Science (GEMS) Resource Development Project, in partnership with Dothan City Schools.
In this lesson, students will explore how to increase the potential and kinetic energy of their toy cars by building ramps. Students will measure the distance the car travels and create a class line graph via the internet from the recorded data. Students will investigate potential and kinetic energy by introducing different variables such as mass, weight, and height during a ramp redesign, and measure the distance the cars travel using the variables. Students will create a presentation on Educreations to showcase their ramp redesign using their chosen variable.
This lesson results from the ALEX Resource Gap Project.
Students investigate different solutions to human impacts on animal migration and identify different stakeholders; this information will be represented in the final map layer for their unit project. Groups develop and present an evidence-based argument that takes a stand on a specific human impact on animal migration and aims to convince stakeholders to implement a recommended solution. This lesson is part of the Detours and Distractions: How Humans Impact Migration Patterns unit.
This resource shows an example of a lateral boundary plate. At a lateral plate boundary, plates slide past each other. The San Andreas fault in California is an example of a transform plate boundary, where the Pacific Plate slides past the North American Plate.
Players strive to create a balanced mountain 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 mountain ecosystem depend on one another. They also experiment with how changing the amount of one resource affects the whole ecosystem.
In this lesson, students will combine two clear colorless solutions (baking soda solution and calcium chloride solution) and see the formation of a solid and a gas. Students will analyze the chemical equation for the reaction and see that all atoms in the reactants end up in the products. They will make the connection between the chemical equation and the real substances and see that the solid and gas produced in the actual reaction are also in the products of the equation.
Students will be able to explain that for a chemical reaction to take place, the reactants interact, bonds between certain atoms in the reactants are broken, the atoms rearrange, and new bonds between the atoms are formed to make the products. Students will also be able to explain that this definition applies to the production of a solid called a precipitate.
Students will be able to locate the sun by using the Hertzsprung-Russel diagram to plot the sun's location. This lesson can be an opening activity, review activity, or a quick lab.
This lesson results from a collaboration between the Alabama State Department of Education and ASTA.
