Lesson Plans

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.

Students will use primary sources to compare and contrast the viewpoints of two notable persons (Booker T. Washington & W.E.B. Du Bois) of the early 1900s and identify the influence they had on the civil rights movement, especially the Jim Crow Laws.

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: Tammy Brown (Cohort 1: 2009-2010)

Central Elementary School Madison County School System Huntsville, AL

In this lesson, students are asked to provide a written description of both an exponential function and its inverse. They are then introduced to the logarithmic function and will practice writing exponential functions as logarithms and logarithms as exponential functions. Students will evaluate logarithmic expressions and will solve logarithmic equations.

This lesson results from the ALEX Gap Resource Project.

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.

This lesson allows students to investigate the slope criteria and characteristics of perpendicular lines using graphing calculators and rectangle/square tiles.  Students will also use equations and graphs.  Students will work cooperatively to develop and justify ideas/conjectures.

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.

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.

Students will learn about Zora Neale Hurston at the beginning of a unit on Their Eyes Were Watching God. Using the essay "How it Feels to be Colored Me," students will discuss the use of metaphors in correlation to Hurston's life. Students will also construct a poem using metaphors about their own lives. 

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

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 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.

In this lesson, students will describe causes of involvement of the United States in Wold War I by defining yellow journalism, and its effect on the United States becoming involved in a war with Spain over its territories in the Caribbean Sea and the Philippine Islands. By viewing primary source documents of newspaper articles from Alabama, the students will make judgments as to the effectiveness of the newspaper articles.

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.

AuthorInformation: Ronald Shephard (Cohort 2: 2010-2011)
Central High School Phenix City Schools Phenix City, AL

This lesson is an introduction to Binomial Expansion and the Binomial Theorem. Students begin by expanding binomials using multiplication. They will examine the expansions looking for patterns. These patterns will be used to develop the Binomial Theorem. Both Pascal's Triangle and Combinations will be used to complete the Binomial Expansion.

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.

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.

This lesson is designed to teach the students that some quadratic equations will have imaginary solutions. The lesson will examine the concept of complex numbers in terms i. The student will use the quadratic formula to solve the equations and write the the solutions in the form a +bi.

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 is part of the Nurse Aide Training or Patient Care Technician Course. Students will be able to proficiently perform height and weight measurement skills as outlined by the Nurse Aide or Patient Care Technician Certification. Students will also understand the importance of assessing and analyzing these measurements. This lesson plan could also be used to teach Course of Study Standard #1 in the Health Science Internship Course.

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.

In this lesson, students will read and critically examine a letter from an Alabama farm owner to a U.S. Senator from Alabama regarding exemption status for the 1917 Selective Service Act on behalf of one of her workers. This primary source document will allow the students to practice evaluating a complex text. The students will answer active reading questions to participate in a "Philosophical Chairs" class debate regarding the merit of the farm owner's request. The Philosophical Chairs activity will allow the students to verbally articulate an argumentative position while specifically using textual evidence to be able to defend their position.

*Note: A bibliography of resources used can be found at the end of the "Lesson Procedures Section" of this lesson.

This lesson was created in partnership with the Alabama Department of Archives and History.

In this lesson, students will analyze poetry and art from the Harlem Renaissance. Students will discuss major themes of the Harlem Renaissance. Then, students will write their own poems reflecting these themes through the website StoryJumper.

Students will examine and evaluate both college and high school students' support of and involvement in the World Wars. Students will research both photographic and textual resources in order to produce factual information about how students reacted to World Wars 1 and 2. This lesson will culminate in a student-driven Socratic Seminar-style discussion which will allow the students to verbally articulate their findings from the resources provided.

This lesson was created in partnership with the Alabama Department of Archives and History.

Students will be conducting a series of investigations in order to compare and contrast the various intermolecular forces that exist between compounds. First, students will rank 4 substances according to their melting points. Second, students will work together using the jigsaw research approach to understand the 4 types of intermolecular forces. And lastly, students will use the information gained to go back to their data collected and compare their original compounds and type of intermolecular bond they exhibit.

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

Students will consider the marketing campaigns of Gatorade to help identify what makes a substance an electrolyte.  Students will plan and conduct an investigation to test common ionic and covalent substances to determine if the substance is an electrolyte or non-electrolyte when dissolved in solution.  

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

Students will design an experiment to relate the voltage difference and current in a circuit. They will collect data, then create and analyze a graph in order to arrive at Ohm's Law. They will create circuits and determine the voltage difference, current, and resistance in the circuit using Ohm's Law.

This lesson results from the ALEX Resource Gap Project.

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.

This lesson will use the process of inverse operations to solve formulas for a given variable. Some formulas will not be recognized by the student. The actual formula is not important, but the variables are.

This lesson results from the ALEX Resource Gap Project.

In this activity, students try to work their way out of a circular maze, thereby modeling the movement of a photon as it travels through the radiative zone of the sun. Classroom discussion after they complete the activity is focused on the Standard Solar Model and its importance in further scientific studies of the sun. 

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.