In this lesson, students are introduced to the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill. Through a hands-on simulation, students explore how birds are affected by oil and how wildlife rescuers help oiled birds.
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.
Creature Power! Collaborate with Aviva to design power suits by deciding what types of animal features are best for certain environments.
This strategy guide will provide teachers with the background knowledge needed to implement the Jigsaw Cooperative Learning Technique in their classrooms. The digital tool explains the research basis of this technique, provides tips for integrating this strategy in the classroom, and offers links to related resources.
Students will conduct an experiment to determine the effect of mass on the distance a toy car will roll. Students will calculate the effect that mass has on the acceleration of the car (the distance the car will roll). Students will also make a prediction of how far the car will roll if more mass is added.
This lesson results from a collaboration between the Alabama State Department of Education and ASTA.
In this PhET Activity, students will generate data from a population of rabbits in different environments. Students will introduce mutations and/or environmental factors that affect rabbits’ traits and adaptations. Students will analyze the generated charts and graphs to evaluate how different traits and adaptations caused the population to change over time due to natural selection. This activity can be used as an introduction to natural selection or as a virtual inquiry lab.
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 can be used to help explain the reason for Earth's seasons, serve as reinforcement after students have already learned this concept, or be used as an assessment at the conclusion of a lesson.
Dr. Shini leads us through the ways that integrals can help us figure out things like distance when we have several other key bits of information. Say, for instance, you wanted to know how far your window was off the ground. By using integrals, a tennis ball, and a stopwatch, you can figure that out.
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.
Fired Up About Energy explores common student misconceptions related to the study of energy and suggests methods for effectively representing and discussing the topic in the classroom.
Students will explore sounds using rulers to simulate a barred instrument. Students will experiment with the vibration of sounds by pulling up on the rulers to make them vibrate and create sounds. They will change the ruler's length to create different pitches. Finally, students will work with a partner to create a melody on their barred instrument.
This activity was created as a result of the Arts COS Resource Development Summit.
This lesson will allow students to experiment with different objects to predict and explain the results of their experiments on the objects as they relate to density. Through this experiment, students will be able to understand the cause and effect relationship to explain the objects sinking or floating.
This lesson results from a collaboration between the Alabama State Department of Education and ASTA.
In this game, students will learn how nitrogen atoms and molecules move through different reservoirs during the nitrogen cycle. Students can play the game as a single-player or join others in a multiplayer format. Students will begin to understand how nitrogen moves through the biosphere, geosphere, and atmosphere in the nitrogen cycle.
As the second installment of a series of lessons on Newton's 3 Laws of Motion, this lesson focuses on Newton's Third Law. Students will take part in an activity exploring the motion of colliding objects. Students will photograph these collisions as a demonstration and explain how Newton's 3rd Law and balanced & unbalanced forces relate to their collision.
This lesson results from a collaboration of the Alabama State Department of Education and ASTA.
The teacher will present an informational fiction 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 as an introduction to the lunar cycle, serve as reinforcement after students have already learned this concept, or be used as an assessment at the conclusion of a lesson. This informational fiction text could provide background knowledge before students create their own moon journal to observe the changing lunar phases.
This video discusses the physics of electricity and Coulomb's law--it's time to talk about charge. What is charge? Is there a positive and negative charge? What do those things mean?
Sedimentary rock is naturally formed in the Earth’s crust. It is formed when sediment deposits form layers, compact, and then cement together, creating a new rock. Sedimentary rocks are used for building materials, and sometimes they even contain fossils.
The classroom resource provides a slide show that will describe how sedimentary rocks are formed during 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 slide show to plan their own investigations.
In these Hero Elementary activities, children learn about plant parts. As they observe different plants, they notice how the parts are alike and not alike. They compare plant parts and notice patterns. Children gather and record information about the parts of plants. They describe how the parts work to help plants live and grow.
This learning activity is an engage activity that should be used at the beginning of a lesson or unit on heredity. The class will look at a picture of a family (preferably the teacher's family) and compare how some physical characteristics are the same and some are different.
This activity results from the ALEX Resource Gap Project.
During this lesson, students will learn the different aspects of a wave, including the crest, trough, wavelength, and amplitude. Additionally, they will learn that waves cause objects to move. At the end of the lesson, they will be able to develop a model of waves and describe patterns. This could be the first lesson into waves that can jump start other lessons on other types of waves.
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 introduce students to the varying habitats of living things, serve as reinforcement after students have already learned this concept, or be used as an assessment at the conclusion of a lesson. This resource also provides an eBook of the article with corresponding illustrations.
How do lenses work? How do they form images? Well, in order to understand how optics work, we have to understand the physics of light. In this episode of Crash Course Physics, Dr. Shini talks to us about optical instruments and how they make magnification possible.
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.
We often take the force of gravity for granted, even though Earth's gravity is what keeps each of us from floating off into space! In this lesson, students begin to more fully understand and appreciate the force of gravity. They predict what will happen when a whole apple and half an apple are dropped at the same time from the same height then test their predictions. Next, they observe cannonballs of different masses being dropped out of a tower, and leaking cups being dropped into a bucket. These activities demonstrate that all objects fall at the same rate, regardless of their mass--a concept known as the law of falling bodies. Students then watch a video segment showing a NASA astronaut dropping a feather and a hammer on the Moon. They repeat the activity in the classroom then consider why these objects fall at the same rate on the Moon but not on Earth. Finally, they use what they have just learned to predict what will happen when two balls of the same mass but different volumes--and then two balls of different masses but the same volume--are dropped at the same time from the same height.
This learning activity should be used during a lesson to make predictions, record observations, and create a hypothesis to help fully understand the relationship between potential and kinetic energy. Students will observe and record the results of three different balls rolling down an inclined plane towards a cardboard box. Students will hypothesize the reason the balls made the cardboard box move.
This activity results from the ALEX Resource Development Summit.
The students will observe the weather over a five-day period. After observing the local weather, the students will record their observations. The students will use their five senses to observe and record the local weather.
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 process of photosynthesis. In addition, there is a sing-along video that students can perform karaoke-style that will help them remember the steps of this process. After utilizing these two resources, the students can complete the short test to assess their understanding.
In this video, Hank explains how the constants in the gas law aren't all that constant. The ideal gas law has to be corrected for volume because atoms and molecules take up space and for pressure because they're attracted to each other. Einstein was behind a lot more of what we know today than most people realize, but a Dutch scientist named Johannes van der Waals figured out those correction factors in the late 19th century and earned a Nobel Prize for his efforts.
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.
In this lesson, students will be able to explain that when some substances are heated to a certain extent, they change in a way that cannot be changed back by cooling them.
Students see a time-lapse video of cookie dough being baked into cookies. Students participate in a class discussion about heat-causing changes that cannot be reversed when cooled. Students learn that heating baking powder in the cookie dough makes gas and causes little holes in the cookie. Students design and conduct an experiment to see if baking powder causes more bubbling when it is warm or cold.
In this activity, the students will diagnose the various disorders of the applicants in the hiring scene of the movie, The Greatest Showman. The students will complete a case study activity sheet on the characters.
This activity is a result of the ALEX Resource Development Summit.
Students will use weather data to construct charts and graphs of temperatures in their city in different seasons. Then they will use this data as evidence to determine which temperatures are typical for each season. Finally, they will research average seasonal temperatures for another U.S. city and compare the data to that of their own city in order to determine which city would be the best vacation spot on a given date. Students will justify their explanations based on temperature data and the desired vacation activities.
This lesson results from a collaboration between the Alabama State Department of Education and ASTA.
The classroom resource provides a slideshow that will describe a variety of landforms and the processes that formed them. In addition, there is a sing-along video that students can perform karaoke-style that will help them remember the different landforms and the geologic processes that shaped them. After utilizing these two resources, the students can complete the short test to assess their understanding.
In this episode, Hank talks about how nutty our world is via buffers. He defines buffers and their compositions, talks about carbonate buffering systems in nature, acid rain, pH of buffers, and titration. Plus, a really cool experiment using indicators to showcase just how awesome buffers are.
