This lesson provides an overview of the major factors that affect plant growth including: water, air, temperature, light and nutrients. If sticking to the basics, the lesson can be taught using all factors except nutrients. However, nutrient information is provided for longer class periods.

Students will find pictures made by seven photographers whose work is in the permanent collection of the Minneapolis Institute of Arts. Lean about great photographs and the approaches these photographers used to make them.

This blog post explains how healt related fitness is incorporated into a first grade physical education classroom. It demonstrates how the three levels of fitness are explained as well as the body systems that are involved with daily physical activity.

Students are introduced to different ways of displaying visual spectra, including colored "barcode" spectra, like those produced by a diffraction grating, and line plots displaying intensity versus color, or wavelength. Students learn that a diffraction grating acts like a prism, bending light into its component colors.

This article features science lesson plans to teach elementary students about the sun's energy, the relationship between light and heat, albedo, and the absorption of different surfaces. National standards and literacy integrations are provided for each lesson.

In this lesson students will investigate shadows and realize that the sun is a source of light. Students will make observations and record their understanding in their science journals.

This activity is designed for students working in small groups to investigate light and some of its properties. Through observation and manipulating equipment students will conclude light travels in a straight line. They will be asked to show through drawings and written description what happened to the path of light when it comes in contact with an object. Questions will be generated for further investigation to reinforce their ideas. Groups will be asked to present their findings. The vocabulary words to be discovered are reflect, absorb, and redirect.

Concepts underlying the first of the Essential Principles of the Climate Sciences are aligned with topics typically taught in the elementary grades. This article identifies lessons that will help elementary students develop an understanding of how Sun's light warms Earth and how variations in daylight hours are associated with seasonal change. This article appears in the free, online magazine Beyond Weather and the Water Cycle.

This lesson includes an Internet exploration that focuses on the roles of the eye and brain in the perception of color. It includes an introduction to the anatomy of the eye, including the functions of rods and cones. It is recommended that students complete the first 2 activities (Light 1 and Light 2) prior to this activity.

In this activity, students will investigate how light reflects off smooth surfaces (mirrors), learn about angles of reflection, and apply that knowledge in a relay experiment where they must direct a light beam around the room by reflecting it off 3 mirrors to hit a target placed in the classroom. Each group will investigate different paths and angles of reflection to hit a target. Once they have found a viable solution, they need to demonstrate their success to the teacher. Teachers will record observations throughout this exploration, documenting student progress in the groups and recording when each group has found a successful solution. Each group is required to complete one relay, but may continue hitting other relay targets as time allows.

Students are introduced to the correct technical vocabulary for lighting, which is different than layperson's terms. They learn about lamp (light bulb) technology and how to identify the various types of lighting in their spaces. They are also introduced to lighting controls as a means for saving energy- reducing costs, human energy consumption, and greenhouse gas emissions on the environment. Using an accompanying worksheet, students embark on a guided audit in which they survey the lighting in their classroom and identify the potential savings from using controls.

In this assessment task students are asked to choose an object in the classroom and are asked to tell two ways they can measure the object. Students should use measurement words such as tall, short, long, heavy or light to tell how they can measure the objects weight, height or length. Teachers can assess in whole class or small group. An assessment recording sheet and rubric are provided.

The People's Physics Book v3 is intended to be used as one small part of a multifaceted strategy to teach physics conceptually and mathematically

A complete introduction to scientific investigation and the scope of physical science. Includes: states of matter, atoms, periodic table, chemical bonding, chemical reactions, carbon chemistry, chemistry of solutions, nuclear chemistry, motion, forces, Newton's Laws of Motion, work and machines, energy, waves, sound, electromagnetic radiation, visible light, electricity, and magnetism.

Students are introduced to the physical concept of the colors of rainbows as light energy in the form of waves with distinct wavelengths, but in a different manner than traditional kaleidoscopes. Looking at different quantum dot solutions, they make observations and measurements, and graph their data. They come to understand how nanoparticles interact with absorbing photons to produce colors. They learn the dependence of particle size and color wavelength and learn about real-world applications for using these colorful liquids.

This article, written for students in grades 4-5, introduces the concept of albedo and describes the shrinking of Arctic sea ice. Modified versions are available for students in younger grades.

Student groups rotate through four stations to examine light energy behavior: refraction, magnification, prisms and polarization. They see how a beam of light is refracted (bent) through various transparent mediums. While learning how a magnifying glass works, students see how the orientation of an image changes with the distance of the lens from its focal point. They also discover how a prism works by refracting light and making rainbows. And, students investigate the polar nature of light using sunglasses and polarized light film.

In this podcast, listen to a traditional Inuit tale about the seasonal light and darkness of the Arctic.

This article provides elementary school teachers with background knowledge about science concepts needed to understand the first of seven essential principles of climate literacy--the sun is the primary source of energy for our climate system. Graphs, diagrams, and oneline resources provide more background for the teacher. The article appears in a free online magazine that focuses on the seven essential princples of the climate sciences.

This packet contains exit tickets for the Kindergarten, Cluster 1, geometry standards.

Exit tickets are written responses to questions posed at the end of a lesson. They are brief assessments which allow the teacher to determine student understanding of the concepts and skills taught that day.

At the Kindergarten level, a blank copy of the exit ticket should be displayed on the board and read aloud to students. As teacher reads, students work independently on their own copy of the exit ticket.