Lesson Plans

Students will be exposed to an engineered solution to the current issue of excessive algae growth that is inhibiting the health of Staghorn and Elkhorn coral populations. Students will then use their knowledge, as well as conduct research, that would allow them to aid in the effort to protect this crucial living element to the oceanic environment. Students will collaborate with their group to apply their knowledge and create an Animoto presentation that consists of at least five slides.

This lesson results from the ALEX Resource Gap Project.

This is a third grade English Language Arts project lesson focused on point of view using the zoo as a theme. The lesson includes a zoo field trip or virtual zoo field trip, class discussions, mini scrapbook point of view project, and a short presentation to the class. This lesson could be modified for upper or lower grade levels.

The goal of this lesson is for students to use their knowledge of hurricanes to design and build a hurricane-proof roof for Piggy Sue, The Three Little Pig's cousin.  She has just moved to town and she needs a house that will withstand a hurricane. Students will test various materials and designs to determine the best design for her roof.  Students will work in groups and use the engineering design method to design and build their roofs.  Each group will have a budget to purchase materials for their roofs.

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 lesson, students will recount a Paul Bunyan tall tale, an entertaining way to identify bodies of water and landforms in the United States. Although Paul Bunyan's Tales did not focus on Alabama, students will create their own narratives after viewing photographs of major mountain ranges, rivers, and lakes throughout Alabama. This lesson will utilize older maps of the United States and Alabama, which are used to remind us that this folk tale was handed down orally until the early 1900s when a newspaper printed several accounts of the tall tale.

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

Students will determine the difference between balanced and unbalanced forces through an experiment. The experiment consists of a student-created scaled snow sled model going down a teacher-created ramp. Students will plan to change one variable, collect data, and chart the data graphically. Students will change a variable such as: number of students riding the snow sled, size of the child (children) riding the snow sled, direction, position on the hill the snow sled is released, position of children on the sled (sitting, standing, laying), friction caused by materials that makes up the sled, and air resistance caused by an object such as a parachute. Students will collect and chart data of each experiment graphically in order to determine the longest snow sled ride.

This lesson results from the ALEX Resource Gap Project.

In this lesson, students will embark on a virtual field trip to the Statue of Liberty. This exciting tour will enable students to make observations related to the statue's iconic history. These observations will allow students to gain an appreciation of the size of the statue, what the statue represents, and how it is an important symbol to our country.

In this simplistic, introductory lesson in Life Science, students will converse with peers to prepare a list of seven common characteristics in organisms after determining if pictured items are living or nonliving. Students will use background knowledge and pictures to identify patterns that represent all living organisms. After watching a short video, students will separate living and nonliving things by coloring or drawing an outdoor environment.  Students will answer this question: Is George Washington Living, Nonliving, or Dead? as an Exit Ticket.

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

Pictures of Alabama State Capitols are provided in this lesson to give students the opportunity to research information that could help them to give their point of view. It will be up to the students to provide further information about the pictures. This will start a conversation about the best location for a capital city and its capitol building.

This lesson was created as part of the Alabama Bicentennial Commission’s Curriculum Development Project.

Students will use a Venn diagram to compare lightning and static electricity. Then, students will experiment with static electricity and read nonfiction passages about lightning and lightning rods. Finally, they will apply their learning to construct a model of a lightning rod system that protects a house from a lightning-induced fire.

This lesson results from the ALEX Resource Gap Project. 

This lesson is a hands-on, game-based lesson. It should be part of a larger unit of study on number sense, estimation, and/or place value. The lesson involves students in a game-based activity which gives them a concrete understanding of the relationship between number values, place value, and the accepted mathematical rule for rounding numbers.

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

This lesson is meant to be used as a culminating project after students have learned about different biomes. Students will start out by separating different plants into their respective biomes based on their characteristics. Then students will create a species that is adapted to survive in an assigned biome.  

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 is an inquiry-based lesson that allows the students to investigate how an animal's color affects its chances of survival in its environment.  Students will explore evidence needed to explain the cause-and-effect relationship between an animal's coloring and its effect on the individual's ability to survive.

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

In Math, students will draw a t-chart to represent dam and flood data obtained from their reading resource. Students will select the information they wish to use from the reading resource (their opinions). Students will then use rulers marked with halves and fourths of an inch to measure lengths and construct a scale model of their own dam, which they can later construct in Science. Students will represent data in a graph and use measurement data by measuring lengths using rulers marked with halves and fourths of an inch. Students will test their scale dams and make changes as needed. 

This unit was created as part of the ALEX Interdisciplinary Resource Development Summit. 

This lesson teaches personification as a form of figurative language. Students will be introduced to characters and objects in stories, poems, and a movie clip that possess human characteristics. This topic can be used as a stand-alone lesson or with a unit on figurative language.

Students will construct and test pendulums with varying weights, string types, release positions, and lengths.  They will collect, graph, and analyze data to see which variables affect the speed of the pendulum in order to predict the movement of new pendulums. Then they will then use this data to solve a real-world problem and explain their thinking.

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

In this lesson, students will define archaeology. Students will make inferences from observations by sorting through garbage to analyze clues about the people who left the garbage. Students will compare and contrast two artifacts looking for clues from the past. Students will write a narrative story of an artifact.

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

The lesson will begin with the teacher leading a discussion related to animal traits and the environment using a T-chart graphic organizer. The students will have the opportunity to discuss their ideas with a partner, and then the teacher will introduce the essential question of the lesson: “Can an animal's traits be influenced by the environment?” Next, the teacher will show students a video clip and nonfiction text related to the arctic fox, which is an animal that experiences a seasonal change in its fur color, and record information about the fox’s traits and habitat on a T-chart graphic organizer. Then, students will research a different animal to determine how its traits can be influenced by its environment using digital or print sources and take brief notes. Lastly, students will develop an explanatory text in a claim-evidence-reasoning format that includes an illustration to help convey their scientific ideas clearly.

This lesson results from the ALEX Resource Gap Project.

The lesson will begin by students performing a think-aloud as they consider the similarities of five words:  tornado, shelter, basement, underground, and safe room. Students will use a pros and cons graphic organizer as they read articles on three different types of tornado shelters: underground shelters, part of the house shelters, and prebuilt shelters. The students will find the advantages and disadvantages of each type of structure. At the end of the lesson, the teacher will create a table that lists all the shelters and the pros and cons of each. Students will then determine which shelter they feel is most efficient in an "exit slip" response. 

This unit was created as part of the ALEX Interdisciplinary Resource Development Summit.

Students will create a commercial, song, poster or skit to inform others about what to do to prepare for a natural disaster.  Students will complete an online activity about disaster preparedness.

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.

Students will interpret various primary sources for reconstructing the past, including documents and photographs about dam designs. Students will gain the skills necessary for researching by locating credible and original sources, and determining if the sources are primary or secondary. Students will use technology to create a presentation, highlighting primary and secondary sources.

This unit was created as part of the ALEX Interdisciplinary Resource Development Summit.

Each student becomes an expert on a natural disaster, investigating and discovering how they can prepare for it.  Students initially create traditional motivational posters using paper, pencils, markers, and crayons.  Then, students create an electronic version to motivate others to prepare for natural disasters.  Next, students create storyboards/scripts and digital stories on a natural disaster of their choosing to inform others of ways to prepare for natural disasters. 

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

Students will work together in groups to discuss the different character traits their character displays. After developing many traits, students will collaborate to create a presentation of at least 4 slides with sentences that describe the character displaying these traits throughout the book. After completing the presentations, students will head back to their groups and create a timeline of their character's events throughout the story. 

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.

This lesson introduces students to the world of primary sources.  Students will analyze two photographs concerning Alabama's second governor, Thomas Bibb, in order to construct meaning.  Students will analyze a primary source from their past and present it to the class. 

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

Students will be given the task to build a dam that will stand against water. Students will design and build a scaled model of a dam and test the model for the ability to reduce the impact of a flood. Students will build a scaled model dam and test the dam’s effectiveness in preventing flood waters. Students will evaluate the efficacy of the dam they constructed and built. Students will contemplate what actions can be taken and materials that could be used in order to create a more effective dam in the future.

This unit was created as part of the ALEX Interdisciplinary Resource Development Summit.

The lesson will begin with students accessing their prior knowledge of weather and climates by completing a warm-up writing prompt. Students will then move to reading texts on the subjects of tornadoes, hurricanes, blizzards, and droughts to determine if and how climate affects these weather phenomena. In groups, students will create a half-poster that describes their findings in text and pictures. At the end of the lesson, students will view a graph to extend their learning about tornadoes and hint at a future lesson while also completing an "exit ticket" as a means of summative assessment. 

This unit was created as part of the ALEX Interdisciplinary Resource Development Summit.

Students will choose a topic that they think should be a law.  As a class, they will re-enact the steps necessary to make a new law.

The students will work together to design a magnetic system that can float from one point to another. The students will design a graphic organizer showing the sequence and steps needed to design a Maglev Train system by applying a scientific understanding of the forces between interacting magnets.

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

This is a third-grade math lesson on the topic of tornadoes and natural disasters. Students will enter data from an internet search on the number of tornadoes occurring in each state into a spreadsheet. Students will analyze and determine which states are the most active in tornado occurrences and create bar graphs and a scaled picture graph from the data collected. 

This unit was created as part of the ALEX Interdisciplinary Resource Development Summit.

HyperSlides are digital lessons/units that help students learn the material in a way that is engaging and inquiry-based. Students will work together to complete a HyperSlides unit centering around animal adaptations for standards in grades 3-5. Students will work creatively and collaboratively with a variety of Course of Study standards that engage students through using Google Slides and Hyperlinks to assist in the understanding of animal adaptations. This project will take several class periods to complete. After an introduction to the Hyperslides, students are encouraged to work at their own pace, but Hyperslides can be assigned on a daily basis.

This Lesson Plan was created in partnership with the Birmingham Zoo.

This lesson compares and contrasts the traditional Three Little Pigs, by Golden Books to The True Story of the Three Little Pigs, by Jon Scieszka and Lane Smith. Students will discover how an author’s point of view can influence how a reader feels.

In this lesson, the students will use the technology resource Mission:Biomes to research and gather data for precipitation and temperatures for assigned biomes.  The students will use the data to create a bar graph to display climate data for each biome.  

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 read a description of the pine barrens by Basil Hall and analyze the text by using the 3-2-1 strategy. Students will discuss the life and work of Basil Hall, including his travels and journaling in North America. They will observe how a camera lucida functions and debate whether using a camera lucida is "cheating" in art. Next, students will venture outside to create a sketch of their environment while appropriately utilizing materials. They will compare and contrast their products to the sketches of Basil Hall and critique each other's work. 

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

Students will create a Google Doc utilizing their school-based account or the class-created account provided by the teacher. Students will electronically journal their thinking throughout the process of the hands-on group science activity about designing and evaluating a dam to reduce the impact of a flood. Once the activity is complete, students will share their Google Docs with a peer or assigned group in order to discuss the findings of the experiment and clarify any unclear statements claimed in his/her journaling. Students will compile journal entries to create sequential writing appropriate to the task. Students will then create a presentation of their journaling with Google Slides, Prezi, Animoto, or a similar electronic presentation tool.

This unit was created as part of the ALEX Interdisciplinary Resource Development Summit.