Lesson Plans

In this lesson, students will investigate objects’ appearances in varying levels of light to help them construct an explanation that objects can only be seen when light is available to illuminate them. Students will discuss why objects look different in a dark room and graph their preferences for sleeping with a light on or off. Then, they will investigate how an object’s appearance changes in different lighting conditions in small group centers. Finally, they will model the moon’s path around the sun to see how light from the sun causes the moon’s appearance to change as it orbits Earth. At the conclusion of the lesson, students will use their experiences as evidence to explain that light is essential for sight.

This lesson results from the ALEX Resource Gap Project.

Students will begin the lesson by viewing a video clip that will explain the difference between classical and transgenic breeding of plants. Next, students will work in groups to identify common foods that contain genetically-modified organisms (GMOs). Students will further explore this concept by gathering and synthesizing information regarding the impact of genetically modified organisms on the appearance of desired traits in organisms. Lastly, students will engage in the "RAFT" writing strategy, by taking on the role of a farmer persuading their employees to consider the positive or negative impacts of genetically-modified food crops.

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

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.

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.

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.

In this lesson, students will compare and contrast characteristics of living and nonliving things via pictures, class projects, videos, and whole-group discourse. Students will record their findings in Science journals.

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 allow students to gather evidence to better understand how plants and animals provide for themselves by altering the environment. Students will observe plants and animals. Students will discuss their findings with group members. The students will write or draw about their findings. After writing with their group members, students will produce and present their knowledge to the class via Chatterpix.

This lesson results from the ALEX Resource Gap Project.

Understanding the energy conversion capability of photosynthesis and the artificial nanostructured photocatalysts contrast biotic and abiotic systems, while demonstrating the efficiency of photosynthesis compared to titanium dioxide nanoparticles in generating gas production volumetrically. The experiment results transition to a discussion of photosynthesis and the organelles within the cell where it takes place.  This lesson explores  light energy capture and transformation into chemical energy during photosynthesis.  The lesson can lead to discussion of renewable energy conversion methods and nanotechnology, to help advance nanoscience research to solve the challenging energy issues in the future.     

Matter is made of particles too small to be seen.  But if we can’t see these particles, how do we know they exist?  In this lesson, students will plan and carry out investigations with air and simple solutions to provide evidence that all types of matter are made of tiny particles that are invisible to the human eye.

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

This inquiry-based lesson provides an introduction to waves by using water waves to explore patterns of amplitude, wavelength, and frequency.  Students will investigate water waves in slow motion.

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

In this hands-on investigation, students will demonstrate how forces have an effect on objects. This lesson, “Move It!” is Day 1 in a series of lessons that help to explain how forces affect objects.  Students will identify objects that can be moved and demonstrate how movement puts objects in motion. In Day 2, “Push Me, Pull You”, students demonstrate that objects can be moved by pushing or pulling them. On Day 3, “Tug of War!”, students describe relative strengths and directions of the push or pull applied to an object.

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

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.

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.

After reading, What if You Had Animal Ears? by Sandra Markle, students will plan, design, and create bat-like ears from various materials for a STEM challenge. Students will test their models and redesign them to improve the effectiveness of their models to increase their own ability to hear by mimicking the external parts of a bat's ear. The students will measure and collect data from tests and compare results between the design and the redesign. This lesson can be completed in two 45 minute sessions or one 90 minute session. 

This lesson plan was created in partnership with the Birmingham Zoo. 

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.

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.

Magnets are fun to play with, but how can we use magnets to improve our lives?  In this lesson, students explore magnets to determine their strength, polarity, and how they attract and repel each other.  Then they use the engineering design process to create inventions that use magnets to accomplish a task.

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

This lesson will engage students in the ways an object can move by applying the forces of push and pull. Students will investigate how to make an object move faster, slower, and stop.

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

In this lesson, students will investigate the relationship between mass, acceleration, and force as described in Newton’s Second Law of Motion.

Students will work in teams to use a wooden car and rubber bands to toss a small mass off of a car. The car, resting on rollers, will be propelled in opposite directions. Students will vary the mass that is being tossed by each car and change the number of rubber bands used to toss the mass.  Students will then measure how far the car rolls in response to the action force generated.

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 module includes hands-on and inquiry-based activities related to the processes of meiosis and gamete formation. Using yarn and pop beads, students will simulate the changes in chromosome pairs during the various stages of meiosis. The students will use Playdough to model the formation of the sperm and egg cells. Students will denote the differences in cytokinesis and explain the reasoning for the differences.

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.

Students will begin by describing how humans change their environment in order to provide for their needs. Students will watch a video clip that explains how several forest animals alter their habitats, and then explain how other animals might change their environment in order to survive. At the conclusion of the lesson, students will create a drawing that illustrates how an animal may alter their environment to provide for its needs.

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

This is one of three lessons that can be taught alone, or as the third part of a series, "Solutions from Nature."  In this lesson, students examine outer parts of animals that provide protection (turtles, crabs, pill bugs, snails, etc.).  They choose from different materials to construct a “helmet” that can protect an egg from breaking if it is dropped.    

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

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.

Students will be able to locate the sun by using the Hertzsprung-Russel diagram to plot the sun's location.  This lesson can be an opening activity, review activity, or a quick lab.

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

The students will create a landform using modeling clay in a small group setting.  

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 investigate how light rays reflect from the surface of an object and allow us to see the object by viewing several small items inside a black bag with and without the use of a light source. Students will work collaboratively on an online simulation to control the path of light in order to illuminate objects. Students will construct a model to describe how an object can be seen when light reflected from its surface enters the eye.

This lesson results from the ALEX Resource Gap Project.

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.

How does light affect sight?  In this lesson, students will observe how light reflects off objects and into the eye so we can see.  They will learn how the pupil controls the amount of light entering the eye, how we perceive color by sensing different wavelengths of light, and why objects look different in bright and dim light.

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

In terms of life science content, evolution is essentially where genetics meets ecology. In this introduction to evolution, students will take on the role of both research biologists and predators to simulate how environmental conditions affect and change a population of model frogs and traits. Students will encounter the impacts of mutations and changes to the environment affecting the survival as well.

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

Students will design and conduct an experiment to see how temperature can affect the particle motion of water. The students will test molecular motion in different temperatures of water by adding food coloring to the water and observing the motion of the water molecules. This investigation will allow the students to see the movement of food coloring in water and how an increase or decrease in temperature will affect that movement.

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

This is a 4th grade science lesson that requires students to investigate the capacity of different soils to retain water and to categorize the types of plants that will grow in different compositions of soil through the use of inquiry, technology, and reading skills. 

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 a multi-session interactive lesson plan about animal adaptations for kindergarten through second-grade students. The goal of this interactive digital lesson plan is to guide students through activities that help them understand how characteristics such as body covering, body parts, and behaviors help animals survive. These lesson plans also build cooperation and communication skills for students. There are additional resources provided for the teacher to use before or after using the HyperDoc. 

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

This lesson may be taught as part of the Unit Plan - Solutions to Lessen Human Impact on the Environment. In this lesson, students will participate in creating a recycle drive for a classroom project. Students will create the notification for parents for the recycle drive to help collect items to be recycled. Students will decide by voting on which items they will recycle. Students will bring recyclable items to the classroom for the project. Recyclable materials will be sorted, weighed, and graphed to compare the different items.

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

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.