Lesson Plans

In this activity, the students will be engineers who compete to create their own "safe" and fast free fall ride.  Using graphing and calculations, the students will calculate the fastest ride and determine the minimum and maximum passenger sizes that their ride will hold.  The team that designs the fastest ride that doesn't "hurt" the passenger(s) wins! 

This lesson results from a collaboration between the Alabama State Department of Education and ASTA.

This lesson will provide instruction on proving triangles to be congruent using rigid motions. Using the concept of transformations, the students will be able to manipulate the triangle on the coordinate plane. When using the coordinate plane to test congruence, the triangle or other object will slide, rotate, or flip to map onto the other object. Sometimes, the student will use a combination of the transformations. 

This lesson results from the ALEX Resource Gap Project.

Students will be motivated to learn how to build new linear functions from existing linear functions.  Students will bring pictures of themselves and their parents from home to personally involve them in the lesson.  Students will learn to use the patterns inherent in functions to quickly and accurately graph linear functions.  This lesson will only deal with vertical shifts and the steepness of the line.  Horizontal shifts will be dealt with in future lessons. In addtion, in future lessons  students will transfer this knowledge to also graph exponential, quadratic, and absolute value functions.

This is a College- and Career-Ready Standards showcase lesson plan.

Students will be guided through a review of the special angles on the unit circle in degree measures.  They will use a circle/paper plate and paper strips to measure and mark these special angles.  Students will be introduced to the definition of a radian and will discover the number of radians in a circle as well as the measures of the special angles in radian measure.  The students will find the formulas for converting degrees to radians and radians to degrees.  They will then use these formulas to convert angles from degrees to radians and from radians to degrees.  

This lesson results from the ALEX Resource Gap Project.

Students investigate the properties of gasses using the gas laws and explore the application to aeronautics. 

This lesson is adapted from the NASA Education Guide Pushing the Envelope: A NASA Guide to Engines.  The activities used include the following:  Gas Laws (pg 27-28); Gas Law Problems - Boyle's Law (pg 29-30); Gas Law Problems - Charles's Law (pg 31-32); Gas Law Problems - Gay Lussac's Law (pg 33-34); Air Density (pg 61-62). 

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 lesson, students will examine the electronegativities of atoms relative to one another to determine if a covalent bond will be classified as polar or nonpolar. Students will use an online simulation to help them understand the importance of lone pairs of electrons as well as bonding pairs of electrons.  Students will use ball-and-stick models to examine and identify the shapes of various molecules.

This lesson results from a collaboration between the Alabama State Department of Education and ASTA. 

Students will begin this lesson by ordering the events of their morning using relative and absolute dating techniques. Students will also write a personal definition of the terms absolute age and relative age. Next, students will work with collaborative groups to order events in Earth's geologic history by relative age, then order those same events by absolute age in a scaled model timeline. Lastly, students will use the time-scale model created with their group members to analyze events in Earth's geologic history.

This lesson results from a collaboration between the Alabama State Department of Education and ASTA.

Students will delve into discussion and writing about plot development, including generating their own reflections, original ideas, and influences on how events interact and shape character, mood, tone, and conflict.

This is a College- and Career-Ready Standards showcase lesson plan.

The lesson will introduce the concept of a matrix. The matrix is labeled by its rows and columns. This lesson will teach the concept of adding, subtracting, scalar multiplication, and multiplication of matrices. This lesson will be a prerequisite for solving systems of equations with matrices.

This lesson results from the ALEX Resource Gap Project.

This lesson explores the reasons for the development of the tenant farming and sharecropping system in the post-Civil War era. Using primary sources (pictures and labor contracts), the lesson presents some of the situations that caused the system to develop. It covers the lifestyle of the farmers and investigates the reasons for the decrease in the system of tenant farming and sharecropping after the Depression and World War II.

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: Vicki Looser (Cohort 1: 2009-2010); Lanett High School; Lanett City Schools Lanett, AL

This lesson provides a formative assessment of previously mastered concepts and skills. Students in the Health Science Internship Course or completing the Certified Patient Care Technician or Certified Nursing Assistant training programs should be proficient in analyzing a patient encounter as well as applying skills and knowledge to formulate a plan. Students will complete a pre-learning activity and pre-briefing before the simulation experience. A structured debriefing follows the simulation experience and serves as a formative assessment. This lesson will focus on standard and transmission-based precautions as well as communication skills.  

Students will compare and give examples of density-independent and density-dependent factors and how they have an effect on the changing conditions on a lake. After establishing the difference between them, students will play a game where they change several factors and assess the effects of their changes to the environment.

This lesson results from a collaboration between the Alabama State Department of Education and ASTA.

Students research and create a brochure project on an endangered species of their choice integrating aspects of math, science, social studies, art, reading and writing. This project allows the students to make connections across the curriculum. Students present their ideas to a group of peers persuading the group to help save or become interested in helping the endangered species. Students are also encouraged to make connections between the activities of the human population and their effect on the natural world. 

This lesson results from a collaboration between the Alabama State Department of Education and ASTA.

Students will compare and contrast similarities between the eight different human blood types and be able to explain how these differences affect blood transfusions. Students will complete the online modules in The Blood Type Game and hunt for answers to a worksheet on The Red Cross website. After the lesson, students will be assessed with an online quiz on Quizziz. 

This lesson was created as part of a collaboration between Alabama Technology in Motion and ALEX.

Lesson author recommended by TIM Trainer Courtney Winn Hamilton.

Students will research various colleges of their choosing in order to best prepare for post-secondary endeavors. The research will be conducted using a handout with specific questions for students to answer about each college. Students will present findings in a brochure or slideshow presentation. 

This is a College- and Career-Ready Standards showcase lesson plan.

Are cell phones really safe for humans to use frequently? In this mock trial lesson, students will use claim, evidence, and reasoning to construct a scientific argument on the safety of the electromagnetic waves involved in cell phone technology. During the lesson process, students will hold a “trial” and each individual student will construct their own written “verdict” based on the evidence presented at the mock trial.

This lesson results from the ALEX Resource Gap Project.

In this lesson, students construct balloon-powered rockets to launch the greatest payload possible to the classroom ceiling. Student teams receive identical parts to build rockets. Then the teams compete to launch the greatest number of paper clips to space (the ceiling).

By utilizing this lesson, the students begin to understand that the scientific progress achieved is not a static process but a fluid one that has developed and changed overtime.  They also begin to realize that scientific advancement has incorporated a variety of scientists throughout history and time periods.

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.

During this activity, the students will use drag and drop computer code to create an interactive ecological energy pyramid model that shows how the 10% law applies to the energy available at each trophic level.  As part of the hour of code, students can use this activity to participate in the Hour of Code week during their biology class.  

This lesson plan results from a collaboration between the Alabama State Department of Education and ASTA.

This lesson will begin by introducing students to the impact of the interaction of the hydrologic and rock cycles on Earth's materials. Students will categorize the mechanical and chemical impacts of the hydrologic cycle on Earth's lithosphere using a jot chart. Students will participate in an outdoor geologic field study to locate examples of mechanical and chemical effects of the hydrologic cycle on their school's grounds. Lastly, students will analyze and interpret the data gathered during the geologic field study through the creation of a bar and circle graph.

This lesson results from a collaboration between the Alabama State Department of Education and ASTA.

This is a technology-based Biology lesson on the Biomes of the world. Students will work in groups and research their designated terrestrial biome. Students will research abiotic and biotic factors in their biome. Students will create a digital presentation of their biome using the preferred presentation platform. The presentation will summarize how the abiotic and biotic factors interact in their biome. Students will then use the collected data from the presentations to create food chains and food webs for their designated biomes. 

This lesson plan results from a collaboration between the Alabama State Department of Education and ASTA.

This lesson will demonstrate that in order to find the coordinates of the special angles on the unit circle, students will need a knowledge of the first quadrant angles only. Students will use special right triangle relationships for 30° - 60° -90° or 45° - 45° - 90° triangles to find the first quadrant coordinate values. These values will then be reflected across the x- and y-axis to locate the coordinates in the remaining quadrants. Students will also convert the angle measurements from units in degrees to units in radians.  They will become familiar with finding angles in the quadrants by using reference angles (π-x, π+x. 2π-x).

This lesson results from the ALEX Resource Gap Project.

This lesson allows students to investigate functions and their inverses by hand and using graphing calculators.  Students will also use equations and graphs.  Students will collaborate to develop and justify ideas/conjectures about functions and inverses.

In this activity, students will model how the directness of sunlight affects the heating of Earth’s atmosphere at the equator. Students will demonstrate that Earth’s shape has a direct effect on the unequal heating of the atmosphere. The students will discover how the tilt of Earth’s axis affects the amount of sunlight that reaches different regions of the earth’s surface thus causing different seasons.

This lesson results from the ALEX Resource Gap Project.

Students will create a Rube Goldberg Machine while working in a small group through this lesson.  They will then explain the energy transformations present in their own machine and in those of their classmates.  This will ensure their understanding of the law of conservation of energy as well as energy transformations.  

This lesson results from a collaboration between the Alabama State Department of Education and ASTA.

After researching the formation of each type of rock, students use the evidence from knowledge of the rock cycle to write a story about a pet rock. The story will include the rock changing from magma to each type of rock including igneous, sedimentary, and metamorphic. Students will present their pet rock story to the class.

This lesson results from a collaboration between the Alabama State Department of Education and ASTA.

This lesson will provide information that will prove the concept of sine and cosine is equal to the complementary angles of a right triangle. The lesson will examine the proper techniques for writing trigonometric ratios. The lesson will enhance background knowledge of proportions as well as use the terminology of means and extremes.

This lesson results from the ALEX Resource Gap Project.

Using the plot development toolkit, students will identify and explain plot development of a class text, including generating their own reflections, original ideas, and discussion regarding how events interact and shape character, mood, tone, and conflict.

This is a College- and Career-Ready Standards showcase lesson plan.

The lesson will make the connection between isolating a guilty person in a “who-dun-it” with isolating a given variable in an equation. In addition, this lesson will involve students creating a list of procedures to use when solving for a given variable. At this time it is not necessary for students to know the formal names for the properties. It is important for students to understand the concepts and take part in creating a set of procedures for isolating a variable and solving equations.

This lesson results from the ALEX Resource Gap Project.

Students will construct 3-dimensional representations of each known element of the periodic table using cereal-sized boxes as their mediums. By creating these models, students will gain an in-depth understanding of their chosen element's discovery, history, unique properties, and place on the Modern Periodic Table. Students will also be able to identify and describe basic periodic trends.

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.

This lesson will lead students on a guided discovery to find the inverse of a function given the graph or a table of values. Students will relate the inverse of a graph to finding the reflection of the graph over the line y=x. They will identify characteristics of functions whose inverses are also functions (One-to-One Functions) and will be introduced to the horizontal line test. Students will also apply their knowledge of a graph to a table of values to determine if the table represents a One-to-One Function.

This lesson results from the ALEX Resource Gap Project.

In this hands-on activity, the students will become Linnaeus by dividing into groups to create their own "Six Kingdom" classification system using various types of fasteners.  They will group the fasteners based on similar characteristics and divide them into domains, kingdoms, phyla, classes, orders, families, genera, and species. They will also have to "name" each taxon for their classification system as well as give the scientific name for each "species" of a fastener.  

This lesson results from a collaboration between the Alabama State Department of Education and ASTA.

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.

Students will construct a model of a dragon based on traits inherited from the parent dragons. This activity demonstrates the inheritance of dominant and recessive traits, codominance, and incomplete dominance. Students will use Punnett Squares to predict genotypic and phenotypic ratios of the dragon population in the class. This project could serve as a culminating activity for Genetics and the Inheritance of traits.  

This activity was adapted from Alabama Science in Motion.

This lesson results from a collaboration between the Alabama State Department of Education and ASTA.

This lesson will lead students through a review of the proof of the Law of Sines. This proof will remind them that they can use the right triangle relationship for Sine to find the height of a triangle. They will then apply this knowledge to find the area of a triangle when given two sides and an included angle. Finally, they will be asked to find the area when no values are given. This result should produce the Area Formula for a triangle given two sides and the included angle.

This lesson results from the ALEX Resource Gap Project.

Students will explore two different interpretations of the Conquest of Mexico by the Spanish, one in art and the other in literature. The perspectives of the same events as seen by the Spanish and the Aztecs will be explored. Students will highlight portions of both pieces of art to gain perspective of both sides.

This is a College- and Career-Ready Standards showcase lesson plan.