STEM Lesson Plans

This is the first lesson in a series of four that are designed to help guide students to design and implement their own independent STEM research project.

Water Troughs on the Rez is a lesson plan to help students understand the mathematical perspective of everyday items around our homes on the reservation. Students are to share different types of water

This is part 2 of a two-part series focused on the effects of grafting tomato plants to potato root stock in order to create "pomato" plants. This lesson is written for junior high students but can be

This lesson is designed to review key biology concepts with 9-10th grade students using hands-on activities with LEGO bricks. I usually implement this a week before our Final exams. Students will

Students will continue to learn about the mining process and will get the chance to do some mining in this lesson. They will get to determine the best area to mine using core samples. Students will

With this lesson, students learn how to do simple macroinvertebrates sampling and identification using common resources to determine the environmental health status of perennial streams in Arizona

This project will be an opportunity for students to demonstrate their understanding of cell structures and functions in a creative, collaborative way that will require critical thinking. Students will

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 will work in groups to research and ecosystem and create 3D food chains which will then be connected to create a food web. This allows students to work on finding appropriate sources online

In this four-day lesson, students will be assigned a specific pollinator. They will research the pollinator and the plants which it pollinates. Then, they will create a puppet and props to model the

This lesson introduces the students to what are antibiotics, how they work, and why they are important. At the same time, it also talks about how an organism becomes antibiotic resistant. The students

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 will use everything they've done in parts 1-3 to analyze how mutations affect proteins. Students will build the mutated proteins that they sequenced in part 3. They will test

In this lesson, students will be introduced to mutations in DNA. They will create beaded or illustrated "codes" to represent 5 different mutations to their original protein codes. These codes will be

In this lesson students will continue to learn about protein synthesis. At the beginning of this lesson students should know that genes have the code to make proteins. Today they will be introduced to

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 gives students a hands-on science and math experience with the duff layer in a ponderosa pine forest. Students will explore a sample to identify what is found in it, measure the width of

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 lesson is designed around competition. Competition is a driving force behind natural selection. If something can survive to reproduce, the traits are passed on. Students will be completing

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

Students will be using simple equipment to demonstrate the 3 laws of motion. They will be incorporating technology, math, and the scientific method to demonstrate what they know.

Involving themes of biology, ecology, and conservation, this engineering lesson introduces students to the behavior of immersed bodies within the realm of fluid mechanics. Utilizing the phenomena of

This is a hands-on activity where students can visualize, using Skittles as atoms, the concept of balancing chemical reactions. Many students get thrown off by the fact that products often look, smell

The lesson targets high school students. It aims to impart a solid understanding of genetics and probability through hands-on activities featuring Wisconsin Fast Plants. Covering an introduction to