Middle school lessons utilize local phenomenon and are organized by grade bands. By designing instruction around local phenomenon, students are provided with a reason to learn shifting the focus from learning about a disconnected topic to figuring out why or how something happens. #Going 3D with GRC
Material Type: Activity/Lab, Lesson Plan
Middle school lessons utilize local phenomenon and are organized by grade bands. By designing instruction around local phenomenon, students are provided with a reason to learn shifting the focus from learning about a disconnected topic to figuring out why or how something happens. #Going 3D with GRC
Material Type: Activity/Lab, Lesson Plan
Middle school lessons utilize local phenomenon and are organized by grade bands. By designing instruction around local phenomenon, students are provided with a reason to learn shifting the focus from learning about a disconnected topic to figuring out why or how something happens. #Going 3D with GRC
Material Type: Activity/Lab, Lesson
Middle school lessons utilize local phenomenon and are organized by grade bands. By designing instruction around local phenomenon, students are provided with a reason to learn shifting the focus from learning about a disconnected topic to figuring out why or how something happens. #Going 3D with GRC
Material Type: Activity/Lab, Lesson Plan
Middle school lessons utilize local phenomenon and are organized by grade bands. By designing instruction around local phenomenon, students are provided with a reason to learn shifting the focus from learning about a disconnected topic to figuring out why or how something happens. #Going 3D with GRC
Material Type: Activity/Lab, Lesson Plan
Lesson plan to explore how snow crystals form, atmospheric conditions that influence crystal morphology. Makes connections crystals, snow density and water content
Material Type: Activity/Lab, Game, Lesson Plan
Data talks are short 5-10 minute classroom discussions to help students develop data literacy. This pedagogical strategy is similar in structure to a number talk, but instead of numbers students are shown a data visual and asked what interests them.
Material Type: Teaching/Learning Strategy
Resource suggestions to explore and consider as a way to support your family learning during school closures.
Material Type: Activity/Lab, Interactive, Lesson
Resource suggestions to explore and consider as a way to support your family learning during school closures.
Material Type: Activity/Lab, Reading
What do Prairie Chickens Need in Order to Survive Today's Prairie? This middle school unit covering ecosystems, animal behavior and symbiosis was developed through the Storyline approach. Middle school students will be figuring out why prairie chickens have a very unique dance and understand the role cows play to help ensure the dance takes place. Using this approach, students engage in science concepts to help ensure the survival of the prairie chicken.
Material Type: Lesson Plan, Unit of Study
In this three week storyline unit, students investigate a maglev train and the electromagnetic forces that cause a maglev train to levitate and provide the source of propulsion for the train. The students use models and micro:bit sensors to investigate magnetic fields created by simple magnets, electrical circuits, and elecgtromagnets to gather evidence to explain how a maglev train functions. Students utilize computational thinking and the engineering design process to apply the concepts to the design an efficient, fully functional scale model maglev train.
Material Type: Activity/Lab, Lesson Plan
Oh, no! I’ve dropped my phone! Most of us have experienced the panic of watching our phones slip out of our hands and fall to the floor. We’ve experienced the relief of picking up an undamaged phone and the frustration of the shattered screen. This common experience anchors learning in the Contact Forces unit as students explore a variety of phenomena to figure out, “Why do things sometimes get damaged when they hit each other?” Student questions about the factors that result in a shattered cell phone screen lead them to investigate what is really happening to any object during a collision. They make their thinking visible with free-body diagrams, mathematical models, and system models to explain the effects of relative forces, mass, speed, and energy in collisions. Students then use what they have learned about collisions to engineer something that will protect a fragile object from damage in a collision. They investigate which materials to use, gather design input from stakeholders to refine the criteria and constraints, develop micro and macro models of how their solution is working, and optimize their solution based on data from investigations. Finally, students apply what they have learned from the investigation and design to a related design problem.
Material Type: Activity/Lab, Lesson, Lesson Plan, Module, Unit of Study
Students extend their knowledge of the skeletal system to biomedical engineering design, specifically the concept of artificial limbs and joints. Students relate the skeleton as a structural system, focusing on the hand as structural necessity. They learn about the design considerations involved in the creation of artificial limbs, including materials. This lesson plan was developed for emergent bilingual students who are intermediate or advanced in their English language development skills. This lesson is adapted from the following resources, "Engineering Bones" and "Prosthetic Party," on the TeachEngineering Digital Library: https://www.teachengineering.org/lessons/view/cub_biomed_lesson01, https://www.teachengineering.org/activities/view/cub_biomed_lesson01_activity1
Material Type: Activity/Lab, Assessment, Diagram/Illustration, Interactive, Lesson, Lesson Plan
Native American people have lived in the area now known as Oregon since time immemorial. During the era of colonialism (beginning in the 1600s)-and even into the 21st century-non-Native people often portrayed the North American continent as a vast wilderness that was virtually unpopulated when they arrived. This could not be farther from the truth. In Oregon alone there were dozens of tribes, each with its own ancestral territory and rich cultural history. There was not a single region of Oregon that did not have an Indigenous tribe or band living within it. Nothing was discovered or “untapped”, but instead well managed as Indigenous stewards of the land. Over time, the environment has been impacted by changes such as an increase in human population, and over consumption of natural resources (freshwater, minerals and energy). This lesson focuses on the impact of dams on the salmon population of Oregon. The activity in this lesson will give students an essential understanding of why salmon are essential to the traditional lifeways of Native Americans in Oregon. It will also highlight the important contributions tribes are making to salmon restoration efforts in Oregon.
Material Type: Lesson, Lesson Plan
In this video segment adapted from Haskell Indian Nations University, student filmmakers explain why it is important to them to make a video about climate change.
Material Type: Lesson
This module includes 10 topics related to finding, evaluating, and presenting scientific information related to climate change or other interdisciplinary topics. The ultimate goal is for students to prepare a paper and present it to their colleagues as though they were giving it at typical professional meeting such as American Geophysical Union, Geological Society of America, or American Quaternary Association. However, the technical level of the talk should be at a level that the class will understand and enjoy. The topic should demonstrate scientific method rather than being merely descriptive or primarily applied science/technology. Students should use current literature. The presentation will be more interesting if the subject is somewhat controversial. The final product should demonstrate that the student understands and has gained the skills presented in all 10 topics. (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.)
Material Type: Activity/Lab, Homework/Assignment
This lesson explores the complexities of food waste and its connection to climate change. Step 1 - Inquire: Students think about food waste and how it may be connected to climate. Step 2 - Investigate: Students learn about different sources and areas of food waste, how food waste is rooted in inequity, and how food waste contributes to greenhouse gas emissions. Step 3 - Inspire: Students discuss different solutions and actions being taken to address food waste and reflect on the actions they can take within their own community.
Material Type: Lesson, Lesson Plan
In this video scientists discuss possible rates of sea level rise, storms and resulting damage, rising temperatures and melting ice, and their collective effects on ecosystems.
This Earth Exploration Toolbook chapter uses ArcGIS and climate data from the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) Climate Change Scenarios GIS Data Portal to help users learn the basics of GIS-based climate modeling. The five-part exercise involves calculating summer average temperatures for the present day and future climate modeled output, visually comparing the temperature differences for the two model runs, and creating a temperature anomaly map to highlight air temperature increases or decreases around the world.
Material Type: Activity/Lab
This teaching activity addresses regional variability as predicted in climate change models for the next century. Using real climatological data from climate models, students will obtain annual predictions for minimum temperature, maximum temperature, precipitation, and solar radiation for Minnesota and California to explore this regional variability. Students import the data into a spreadsheet application and analyze it to interpret regional differences. Finally, students download data for their state and compare them with other states to answer a series of questions about regional differences in climate change.
Material Type: Activity/Lab
