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.

In this lesson, students will define conflict as it relates to Native American land conflict during the early nineteenth century. Students will compare Native Americans' and settlers' perspectives on land. Students will write a narrative writing as a Creek Chief watching the settlers move into their territory, focusing on how this makes them feel and how these events will change the lives of his/her people. This lesson was created in partnership with the Alabama Department of Archives and History.

This lesson will allow students to investigate matter and its states by describing and classifying substances according to their physical properties. Students will begin their journey with a song. Then identify their thinking with an idea chart. Finally, they will put their learning into practice in the real-world with an explorative scavenger hunt.

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.

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.

The majority of Earth's surface is covered by water, but only a small percentage of this water is freshwater. In this lesson, students will learn where saltwater and freshwater are found. Then they will use models to show the distribution of different types of water in different reservoirs and depict this information using bar graphs and pie charts. Finally, they will use their data as evidence to support the idea that freshwater should be conserved. 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 the urban dictionary, "on fleek" is currently a popular slang term that describes something that is "flawlessly styled or groomed." In this lesson, the students will explore the concept of evolution by using their engineering skills to "build" various bird beaks that are "flawlessly styled," or "on fleek," for capturing different types of food. Finally, the students will use argument-driven inquiry to design an experiment and use claim, evidence, and reasoning to justify which "bird" is best adapted to survive during conditions of limited resources. This lesson results from a collaboration between the Alabama State Department of Education and ASTA.

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.

If water covers 70-75% of our planet, then why should we be concerned about water quality and conservation? This lesson helps students understand that 97% of our water is present on Earth in the form of salt water, and therefore, unavailable for helping support life on Earth. Another 2% of Earth's water is frozen, which leaves us approximately 1% in groundwater, lakes, streams, and water vapor. This lesson was adapted from a lesson series from 4-H SET (California) . This lesson results from a collaboration between the Alabama State Department of Education and ASTA.

This lesson will enhance mathematical vocabulary knowledge and reinforce basic skills for solving equations. Mathematical vocabulary is a vital part of this lesson. The lesson will challenge the minds of seventh-grade students with the theory of angles. The student will use the information in the diagram to write an equation and solve for the variable. Terms that will be identified in the lesson are as follows: supplementary, complementary, adjacent, parallel lines and transversal, and vertical angles. This lesson results from the ALEX Resource Gap Project.

This lesson will provide students with two primary documents, a drawing of a postal stagecoach and a newspaper article outlining the difficulties of mail delivery. Students will complete a graphic organizer to provide evidence that details a specific perspective described in the documents. Students will examine the cultural and economic aspects of the early nineteenth century and will refer to details and examples in a text when explaining what the text says explicitly and when drawing inferences. Students will be able to explain how an author uses reasons and evidence to support particular points of view. This lesson was created in partnership with the Alabama Department of Archives and History.

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.

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.

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.