Lesson Plans

William Weatherford was a Creek leader during the Creek War of 1813-1814. This lesson explores who William Weatherford was as a person, as a Creek leader, and his role in the Creek War of 1813-1814. Students will view a PowerPoint, read an excerpt from an article about William Weatherford from the Encyclopedia of Alabama, share information with peers, and view the engraving of William Weatherford surrendering to Andrew Jackson.  At the end of the lesson, the students will draw a conclusion about William Weatherford and support it with evidence from the lesson. This lesson should be done in conjunction with studying the Creek War of 1813-1814 so that his role in this historical event can be better understood.  

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

In this lesson, students will explore animal adaptations for a variety of animals.  Students will select one adaptation and create a wanted poster describing the specific adaptation for that animal and how it functions to help the animal survive, grow, behave, or reproduce.  

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

Students will explore how changes in rocks and land formations over time explain the large number of aquatic fossils that can be found across the state of Alabama. They will model volcanic eruptions and fossil formation through a hands-on activity using baking soda, vinegar, and play dough. Then they will read a news article to determine that Alabama was underwater at one time, which explains how aquatic fossils are found across the state. Finally, they will write and illustrate an explanation that shows how layers and fossils found in rock are evidence that these rocks changed over time.

This lesson results from the ALEX Resource Gap Project.

Students will describe features shown on topographic maps as they plan a route for a bicycle race around the school neighborhood.  First, they will create clay mountains and learn how to make topographic maps of their landforms.  Then they will interpret topographic maps made by other students in the class to match each mountain to its map.  Finally, they will use topographic maps of the school campus to plan an exciting but safe bike race route.

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

When we hear the words Civil Rights Movement, we have visions of Dr. Martin Luther King and a few others. Through pictures, students will identify ordinary leaders in the crowd. Students will have the opportunity to analyze those pictures by doing a picture walk.  Students will learn more about some of the people in the crowd, and how they made a difference in our beloved community.

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

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 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.

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 lesson, students will demonstrate echolocation using only their sense of hearing to locate sounds in their environment by playing a game of Marco Polo.  Students will create their own method of echlocation  to communicate with each other.  Students will write a narrative, from the viewpoint of a dolphin, describing how a dolphin uses echolocation to communicate and to locate things in their environment to aid in their survival. 

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

Engage students in testing their knowledge of circuits in this delightful dissection. Students will apply science practices and content knowledge while conducting hands-on and digital/print research and writing. The actual "dissection" does not take very long, but the writing components can be extended if desired. 

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

Throughout this lesson, students will discover how the lens in your eye helps focus light. First, students will discuss the parts of the eye and how these parts work together to allow us to see. Then, students will use a clear plastic bag filled with water to create a model of an eyeball to investigate how the lens in your eye helps focus light.

This lesson results from the ALEX Resource Gap Project.

This inquiry-based lesson allows students to explore how our bodies use our voluntary and involuntary nervous systems to make our bodies function. 

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

Students will use the free online coding program Scratch to learn the basics of coding and how to use blocks and animations to create a game. Students will create a game to find multiples of a given factor by making a character fly into the correct multiple of the given factor. The student will go through a series of coding steps to create a background, make a character fly, and create the factor and multiple game.

This lesson plan was created as a result of the Girls Engaged in Math and Science, GEMS Project.

In this lesson, students will explore the invention of the steamboat and the role it played in the economy, transportation, and culture of the lifestyles of plantation owners, yeoman farmers, slaves, and townspeople of early nineteenth-century Alabama.  Students will compare and contrast steamboats, wagons, and stagecoaches as different modes of transportation for goods as well as people.  Students will create a steamboat advertisement to illustrate the importance of the invention of the steamboat in Alabama. 

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

This lesson will introduce students to an Alabama connection to World War I. The primary document that will be used is a letter to a father from a University of Alabama student, written on March 2, 1917, exactly one month before the United States declared war on Germany. The student discusses typical family topics before ending with his concerns about the possibility of war.

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:Dr. Lesa Roberts (Cohort 1: 2009-2010) Hampton Road Middle School; Huntsville City School System; Huntsville, AL

Students will analyze a primary document that details items purchased to celebrate the Marquis de Lafayette's tour of Alabama in April 1825. Students will create an invitation to the celebration, including the What, Where, When, Why, What to Bring, and R.S.V.P. Students will include details from the secondary source, as well as the primary document, to include on the invitation. The event will be explained utilizing the format of the invitation.

This lesson is part of the SSC3 A+ College Ready training.

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

Students will learn how engineers construct buildings to withstand damage from earthquakes by building their own structures with toothpicks and marshmallows. Students test how earthquake-proof their buildings are through an earthquake simulation using a pan of Jell-O.

This lesson was adapted from Teach Engineering.

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

Students will observe how potential and kinetic energy relate to the transfer of energy from one marble to another when they collide. Students will introduce different variables (mass and height) and investigate the transfer of potential and kinetic energy in a sled collision online simulation. Students will build a ramp, test it, and measure the distance their cars travel caused by the collision. Students will create a presentation to share their findings with the class.

This lesson results from the ALEX Resource Gap Project

In this inquiry-based lesson, students will investigate how rainfall changes the land and causes runoff.  The students will simulate a stream table to show how rainfall erodes the land.

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

The lesson will explain why significant leaders of the Creek War disrupted the Alabama Creek Indian Headsmen and the government. The disruption would be solved through negotiation. The negotiating Creek Indians did not obtain full restoration of their land, however, they did accept a compromise.

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

Students will explore and review prime and composite numbers. Students will also build a factor tree model by displaying how to write out a prime factorization of a number correctly, how to identify prime and composite numbers, and how to check their results. This hands-on approach allows students to use different mediums and practice their understanding of mathematics. 

In this lesson, students will be able to describe cultural aspects of early nineteenth century townspeople by reading a newspaper article describing the opening of a new school. Students will also be able to discuss, infer, and write from a variety of perspectives when explaining the roles of various people mentioned in the article.

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

The goal of this activity is for students to simulate the constructive forces of a volcanic eruption, observe how lava flows build up layers of a landform, study the stratigraphy of the new landform, and connect the simulation to events in the natural world.

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 conduct an experiment to compare similarities and differences with wind and water erosion.  Students will create a narrative story describing a particular rock formation based on evidence in the rock patterns, including an estimated time frame, plants and animals that may have been living in the environment, and the type of erosion that formed their rock formation.

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

This lesson provides an introductory-level experience with soil. During the experiment, students will combine soil with water and conduct observations. The observations made will lead to greater understanding of soil's basic properties.

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

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.

Codes are used to transmit messages.  We may use codes to keep our messages secret from people who do not know the code, or we may use them to change one type of information into another.  The key to decoding a message is knowing the rule to crack the code.  In this lesson, students will explore different types of codes, create coded messages, and apply rules to decode messages. 

This lesson provides the background needed for students to then develop their own method for transferring information.

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

Students will explore an article about education in the early nineteenth century and a newspaper article from 1818 to determine what education was like in the early nineteenth century. Students will investigate the documents and find text evidence to find out what schools were like in the early nineteenth century. Students will use their findings to write a story.

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

This lesson will use primary sources to compare and contrast the perspectives of George C. Wallace at the beginning and in the latter part of his life as a political figure in Alabama. The students will develop a hypothesis about the effect that Wallace’s views and actions had on the image of Alabama and the changes in his character over time.

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: Misty Freeman (Cohort 2: 2010-2011); Rehobeth Elementary; Houston County Schools; Dothan, AL

Students will read from an Alabama newspaper about President James Monroe's surprise visit to Huntsville. The article discusses the purposes of the visit, the locals who welcomed and entertained the President, and his discussion of current (1819) events.

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

This investigation allows students to explore the real-life meaning of solar energy. Students designing and engineering a solar oven using a  pizza box. Completed projects will be tested and then evaluated for effectiveness.

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

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.

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.

Students will use the free online coding program, Scratch, to learn the basics of coding and how to use blocks and animations to create an animated animal. Students will show how an animated animal will receive, process, and respond to information using its senses. The students will go through a series of coding steps to create a background and make an animal move and change according to factors in its environment.

This lesson plan was created as a result of the Girls Engaged in Math and Science, GEMS Project.

This lesson looks at the natural resources that drew settlers to Alabama. Students will explore the 1818 letter from Joseph Noble to his friend, Samuel B. Bidgood, describing the town at Tuscaloosa Falls.  Students will explain ideas within this historical text based on specific information presented in this primary source.

Follow-up lesson - Alabama: A Boundless Field of Speculation

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