Students build a 9 M X 9 M model of an animal or plant cell with cell organelles inside it and give cell tours to Life Science students. May be done as two large groups, or a whole class project.

Both of these lessons are classroom activities that require students to build models that display understanding of atoms and molecules. One lesson is structured while the other is guided.

This lecture/activity on force will further a students' understanding of forces on an object, as well as the difference between a balanced and unbalanced forces.

This activity is designed to help students understand the structures and functions of the cell by building a model.

In this out of class tutorial, students explore several examples of natural selection and speciation.

This lab activity is designed to have students use their knowledge of balancing and identifying chemcial reactions and apply it in a fun and interesting way!

This activity is a project in which students research keystone species and report on specific species to the class.

This model-making activity gives students an opportunity visualize Newtonian forces acting on a single point as well as combined forces acting to produce synclines and anticlines in Earth's crust. Students will analyze models to interpret findings of plate movements.

This simulation is intended to help students use what they already know (elementary probability) to the concept of radioactive decay and how it can be used to determine the absolute age of an igneous rock. The students will be simulating atoms of a radioactive isotope such as radiocarbon or uranium with M & M's or some other flattish object with differently-marked sides.

They simulate a half-life by shaking the M & M's and dropping them onto a sheet of paper. Roughly half of them will fall with the blank side up, just as half of the radioactive atoms decay into another element during a half-life. The students will remove the blank M & M's, graph the number of undecayed ones, and shake those, simulating another half-life. The students will pool their data, examine the effect of sample size, and assess how many half-lives it takes to run out of countable undecayed atoms. This model explains why real radiometric dating labs require minimal starting sample sizes and cannot give dates beyond a certain range (>40,000 yrs) for radiocarbon.

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This activity is a combination outdoor/indoor lab where students will collect natural materials from the environment and use them to create both a mold and cast model of a fossil. Students will learn how a fossil is formed and why scientists use models to help them understand how things work and develop.

This activity is an observation opportunity for students to view the phases of the moon and learn that the juxtoposition of the Earth and moon dictates the appearance of the moon in the sky.

This activity is a classroom investigation where the students create, in size and distance, a solar system model in proportion to a selected sphere representing the earth.

This activity is a mini lab where students see the effects of gravity on objects falling from a resting state and objects projected out from the same level.

This is a large-scale participatory activity used to prompt students to review what they have learned and to think actively and cooperatively about the connections between the systems we have discussed prior to the activity. It produces a large, visual product students can reflect on.

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This lesson has activities where students will learn about buoyancy and explore how hot water rises and cold water sinks. As an extension and real-life application, students will see that glacial run-off is occurring at a rapid pace and the cold glacial water could potentially change ocean currents thus influencing global climates.

Short demonstration on scientific notation by asking students to place numbers on a number line using string and notecards.

As an on-going project, students note the position of the sun by mapping a shadow on the classroom floor. They learn about the earth's tilt and the effect of the sun's light on our seasons.

This module introduces students to the basics behind translation of a messenger RNA sequence into protein. In addition to text and movies, there are interactive shockwave animations that allow students to move ribosomes and tRNAs to perform translation.

Using a systems dynamics approach, students will work in groups to conceptualize and construct a model of the global carbon cycle considering five major Earth systems: atmosphere, hydrosphere, geosphere, cryosphere, and biosphere. The models will draw on information from the pre-class activity and invoke system features such as boundaries, stocks, flows, and control variables. Using a scenario describing a global, catastrophic event, the students will consider how new conditions change the behavior of carbon cycling in their model world. Students will use the model to explain changes in environmental variables such as permafrost cover, atmospheric gases, and global temperature, as well as feedbacks within the system.

(Note: this resource was added to OER Commons as part of a batch upload of over 2,200 records. If you notice an issue with the quality of the metadata, please let us know by using the 'report' button and we will flag it for consideration.)

Students will fill in a blank periodic table for elements 1-20 using electron-dot models. As a visual tool students should see several periodic trends.