In this inquiry activity, students solve a 1D motion challenge in groups. Students build their own balloon rocket from the provided materials. They collect data and prepare a position vs. time graph of their data and determine the average velocity of the rocket.
In this lesson, students will compare and contrast different kinds of birds' bills and categorize pictures. After drawing the bills in each category, they will then compare the bill types with common household items.
In this lesson, students will investigate the Law of Conservation of Matter using observation and data collecting and answering inquiry-based questions.
In this simple activity, students are able to visualize and manipulate the relationship between pressure and volume (Boyle's Law).
In this activity students make and use coverslip traps as a method to collect bacteria and microorganisms from marine and freshwater environments. Many organisms, including bacteria, ciliates and diatoms will colonize bare surfaces in an aqueous environment. By providing a substrate one can encourage the formation of these biofilms. Coverslips are a suitable substrate for colonization, and can easily be observed under the microscope.
In this activity, students make and use simple nets to collect plankton, organisms that spend all or some of their lives living at the water surface. Viruses, bacteria, protists, fungi, and animals ranging in size from nanometers to several centimeters can all be found in the plankton of fresh or marine waters.
In this activity students make and use styrofoam traps as a method to collect bacteria and microorganisms from marine and freshwater environments. The tiny spaces in foam peanuts and blocks of polyurethane foam can be colonized by microorganisms.
In this lab, students will learn about the life cycle of corals, including how they grow and reproduce. Students will also consider the chemistry of seawater and demonstrate how calcium carbonate precipitates to form skeletal reef material.
In this lab, students will learn about the life cycle of corals, including how they grow and reproduce. Students will also consider the chemistry of seawater and demonstrate how calcium carbonate precipitates to form skeletal reef material.
In this lab, students will learn about the life cycle of corals, including how they grow and reproduce. Students will also consider the chemistry of seawater and demonstrate how calcium carbonate precipitates to form skeletal reef material.
In this interactive building experience, students will design and construct a complex machine to do a fairly simple task. Students will calculate several kinetic quantities of different parts of their machine. Students will create an engineering manual that provides a step-by-step method of building the machine and also calculates costs associated with the machine's production. Students will brainstorm ideas to increase the effectiveness of their machine while decreasing the costs of its production.
In this lesson, students measure the apparent path of the sun across the sky using a toilet plunger. Students will then generate questions as to why the sun appears to move, and what is really happening in the process. They will then construct paper astrolabes and measure the angle of the sun compared to earth (its declination).
In this lab activity, students will calculate the speed of sound. The will observe that the speed of sound is constant, regardless of wavelength and frequency, and see the inverse relationship between wavelength and frequency.
In this activity, students are presented with the situation that they are on a camping trip and wish to know the wavelength emitted by a star. They are given a laser to simulate the starlight and use a diffraction grating and a ruler to determine the wavelength of its light, then compare their results with accepted wavelengths given on the electromagnetic spectrum chart.
This activity guides students through the process of analyzing the motion of a car as it moves across an ice rink and then rapidly decelerates as the brakes are pressed. In addition to one dimensional kinematics, the worksheet prompts students to consider both the frictional force and measurement uncertainty.
In this lesson, students work in groups, plotting carbon dioxide concentrations over time on overheads and estimating the rate of change over five years. Stacked together, the overheads for the whole class show an increase of carbon dioxide over five years and annual variation driven by photosynthesis.
The goal of the assignment is to increase student awareness of the various sources of energy consumption and of the impact that each one of them is having on the atmospheric carbon budget. Students will use an online carbon footprint calculator to determine their footprint during one specific week.
In this Spreadsheets Across the Curriculum module, students will build a spreadsheet to calculate the net carbon sequestration in a set of trees using an allometric approach based upon parameters measured on the individual trees. Students determine the species of trees in the set, measure diameter at breast height (dbh), and, from the allometric relationships determined by forestry researchers, use the spreadsheet to calculate carbon content of the tree. Students can then compare their data to that measured a year earlier on the same set of trees, to determine the rate of carbon sequestration.
In this lesson, students will explore the life cycle of the monarch butterfly. They will go outside and observe milkweed plants and identify the stages of monarch that are seen on the plants. Students will also make a pop-up book of the life stages.
In this activity, students are presented with price, average cost and marginal cost information to determine whether a perfectly competitive firm - in this case, a farm selling vegetable shares - should increase, decrease or keep constant its production level.