STEM Lesson Plans

Students will explore bird habitats and research how natural and human-caused changes to habitats or climate can impact populations. They will participate in an engineering design challenge to model a

Students design and engineer a paper backpack to hold all the supplies swallowed by the well-loved old lady in "There Was An Old Lady Who Swallowed Some Books". They follow the engineering design

Students will learn about the difference between potential and kinetic energy by building a ramp. Three objects will be tested down the ramp to see which one can go the farthest. Data will be

This lesson will develop an awareness of the critical importance of access to clean water for survival in the wilderness, drawing inspiration from the book "Hatchet." Students will recognize the vital

In this lesson, students focus on the engineering design process to help them design, build, and test a functional bow and arrow system like the character Brian Robeson in the book "Hatchet". Students

After completing a unit on weather, students will be challenged to research, design, construct and attach a snow plow to their Edison robot. Then they will create a scratch code that will navigate

This is a great opportunity to show students that coding can be a lot of fun, and it doesn’t have to be scary. Many high school students with little to no prior coding experience often automatically

This 45-minute lesson uses the book, "How to Catch an Elf", to lead into a cooperative engineering design lesson where students work in teams to build a humane trap to capture an elf.

This is the second part of this unit on the duff layer in a forest. After learning after duff and its potential impact on forest fires in the last lesson, students will be following the engineering

In this lesson, students use the Kepler’s Laws PhET Simulation to collect data on the period and average radius of the planetary orbits. They graph and analyze that data to derive Kepler’s 3rd Law.

In this lesson students are introduced to the idea that DNA is the code to create proteins and that proteins can be structural or functional. Students are given a problem to create a model of a

This lesson is PART 4 of a four-lesson unit, which focuses on futures thinking, the phenomenon of electricity, closed-system agriculture, and water as a renewable energy resource. “The City of Ember”

This lesson is PART 3 of a four-lesson unit, which focuses on futures thinking, the phenomenon of electricity, closed-system agriculture, and water as a renewable energy resource. “The City of Ember”

This lesson is PART 2 of a four-lesson unit, which focuses on futures thinking, the phenomenon of electricity, closed-system agriculture, and water as a renewable energy resource. “The City of Ember”

This lesson is PART 1 of a four-lesson unit, which focuses on futures thinking, the phenomenon of electricity, closed-system agriculture, and water as a renewable energy resource. “The City of Ember”

This lesson is a 3-4 day lesson on Public Service Announcements for reusing commonly discarded item versus trashing them. The lessons include the power of a Public Service Announcement, components to

This lesson uses a PhET Simulation to allow students to collect data on the orbits of planets around our Sun, then summarize and share their results. It is designed for students in Grades 9-12.

This is a multi-day engineering design project. I use this for 2 weeks, a total of ten 50-minute periods. Students will research and design a dog house, creating a 3D model in a web-based computer

This lesson is the beginning stages of planning for a greenhouse. Students work to gather data and information about possible locations for the greenhouse by using their perimeter skills.

In this lesson students will use their climate zone and plant information to create a model of a garden. They will use a variety of charts and graphs to determine what plants will grow best given the

This is the first of 4 lessons where students will propose and configure a school garden using criteria given by the principal. Students will work in groups of 3 to determine configurations. They will

Students will use an understanding of the sun as an energy and heat source to design a device to direct the sun's heat to aid with growing plants. The students will go through the 5 E's and the

This lesson allows students to explore why volcanoes are shaped differently and why they erupt differently. Students will investigate viscosity, silica content of igneous rock samples, and perform

Students will explore how gravity plays a role in orbits and the attraction between objects in space, using online simulations. In addition to the online simulations this lesson contains ideas for