Grades:
5th Grade
Can a water fountain be solar powered? YES! In this engaging lesson, students will engineer a solar powered water fountain to show how energy transformed and transferred throughout their system. Each
Grades:
6th Grade
In this hands-on lesson, students will construct a paper windmill. They put it to the test by using a fan to see how their fan holds up to the wind. This is a great way to cover science, engineering
Grades:
4th Grade, 5th Grade, 6th Grade, 7th Grade, 8th Grade
In this hands-on lesson, students learn how to get their drone into the air. It covers hovering, yaw, roll, and pitch. Before the students launch their drones, there is a discussion about preparing
Grades:
6th Grade, 7th Grade, 8th Grade
This is an 8-lesson unit that is designed to be used together to learn about the health and diversity of your local watershed by placing leaf packs into a water source (natural or man-made ponds
Grades:
1st Grade
In this hands-on lesson, students will listen to "The Water Princess" by Susan Verde and then create their own water filtration system in a small group. Students will consider questions like, "How can
Grades:
3rd Grade
Students will tend to their garden boxes and observe the plants that are starting to grow. Students will take measurements and start a graph on growth throughout the growing cycle of their garden
Grades:
6th Grade
Students will be thinking like engineers as they design their marble roller coasters using the principles of kinetic and potential energy.
Grades:
6th Grade, 7th Grade, 8th Grade
This is an 8-lesson unit that is designed to be used together to learn about the health and diversity of your local watershed by placing leaf packs into a water source (natural or man-made ponds
Grades:
5th Grade
In this creative lesson, students will create a simple machine to retrieve objects through a makeshift storm drain. There is a potential literacy integration and a focus on the engineering design
Grades:
4th Grade
In this STEM Challenge, the student’s task is to build a car that is powered only by the force (push or pull) of a pair of magnets. Students experience push and pull first-hand as they construct their
Grades:
5th Grade
In this engaging and hands-on lesson, students will learn how crime scene investigators use science and engineering techniques and technology to solve crimes. Students will match substances based upon
Grades:
6th Grade
Can one organism turn an ecosystem upside down? In this engaging lesson, students use an interactive site (hhmi biointeractive) to understand and answer how a species becomes invasive, analyze
Grades:
Kindergarten, 1st Grade
Students build the tallest beanstalk they can with the provided materials. They then measure it and compare their beanstalk heights. This pairs perfectly with a read aloud of Jack and the Beanstalk!
Grades:
6th Grade, 7th Grade, 8th Grade
This is an 8-lesson unit that is designed to be used together to learn about the health and diversity of your local watershed by placing leaf packs into a water source (natural or man-made ponds
Grades:
3rd Grade
This lesson is the initial planning, sorting, and planting lesson to get Our Plot of Sunshine Curriculum started within a 3rd grade classroom. Can be modified for other grades, but math within this
Grades:
3rd Grade
In this lesson, students will create a unique animal and then describe & draw it in a specific habitat. The students will determine what adaptations the animal needs to survive in the habitat and
Grades:
Kindergarten
This is a hands-on lesson about shapes! After listening to Jack and the Beanstalk, students will look at a collage of castles and try to identify shapes that they see in the construction of the
Grades:
5th Grade, 6th Grade, 7th Grade, 8th Grade
Building on the programming concepts explored in part 1, this lesson asks students to re-imagine the ‘spiral-out’ program to be a spiral-in program instead. Designed to be a stepping-stone activity to
Grades:
4th Grade
Students will be able to design a method of protection for the Earth’s land that would withstand the impact of rainfall on soil and prevent erosion. Students will discover that the soil with
Grades:
5th Grade, 6th Grade
This is an introductory lesson designed for a robotics after-school session involving materials and equipment from VEX robotics and coding. Students explore robotics, discuss the tasks robots can
Grades:
6th Grade, 7th Grade, 8th Grade
In this hands-on lesson, students use fruit snacks or candy to create models of the molecules used and produced in cellular respiration.
Grades:
6th Grade, 7th Grade, 8th Grade
This is an 8-lesson unit that is designed to be used together to learn about the health and diversity of your local watershed by placing leaf packs into a water source (natural or man-made ponds
Grades:
9th Grade, 10th Grade
In this hands-on lesson, students work with a partner to construct a functioning, usable sprinkler. Students use basic principles of engineering to create this prototype and test it out for adequate
Grades:
11th Grade, 12th Grade
This will be a 1 class period laboratory. It should take about 45-60 minutes. Students will be making a wet-mount slide of pollen that they collected or that was provided. They can look at prepared
Featured Lesson Plans
Check out these notable lesson plans.
Featured
Best Class Plant
Grades:
1st Grade, 2nd Grade, 3rd Grade
This lesson is centered around the book, The World's Best Class Plant. It is intended for 1st-3rd grade. Ideally, teachers would use this lesson at the beginning of the year so they can have their
Featured
Magic Magnets: Flying Butterfly
Grades:
3rd Grade
Students will have the opportunity to explore the magnetic field in small groups or independently. Students will explore the forces by demonstrating how a paper clip can float in the air using a
Featured
STEM Tank! Part 2
Grades:
3rd Grade
Students will go through the engineering design process to come up with a product that will solve a real life problem. By the end of the unit, students will design their product, make their product