This free, standards-based website developed for elementary teachers provides hand-picked, reviewed, on-line resources to enhance teacher content knowledge regarding reasons for the seasons.

In 1691, a group of girls from Salem, Massachusetts accused an Indian slave named Tituba of witchcraft, igniting a hunt for witches that left 19 men and women hanged, one man pressed to death, and over 150 more people in prison awaiting a trial. In this lesson, students will explore the characteristics of the Puritan community in Salem, learn about the Salem Witchcraft Trials, and try to understand how and why this event occurred.

There are different criteria proposed for ethical use of CRISPR, because uts use could have unintended consequences.

Unit plans for Grades K-2 and 3-5 are a regular feature of the magazine Beyond Weather and the Water Cycle. The plans draw on articles and resources in a themed issue and are aligned with national science and language arts standards. This unit is designed to provide elementary students with the opportunity to investigate how the annual rings in trees help scientists learn about past climates. It uses hands-on experiences and nonfiction text to answer the unit question: How do trees help scientists learn about the past?

In this activity, students analyze regions of sea ice using data and ImageJ software. They measure ice mass and calculate effective albedo, and plot changes in solar energy and water/ice cover percentages. This is part 4 of a four-part activity on polar science. Data access information is provided in the attached appendix. This activity is one of several learning activities connected with the 2007 GLOBE Earth system poster.

Students explore how mathematical descriptions of the physical environment can be fine-tuned through testing using data. In this activity, student teams obtain satellite data measuring the Earth's albedo, and then input this data into a spreadsheet-based radiation balance model, GEEBITT. They validate their results against published the published albedo value of the Earth, and conduct similar comparisons Mercury, Venus and Mars. The resource includes an Excel spreadsheet tutorial, an investigation, student data sheets and a teacher's guide. Students apply their understanding to the real life problem of urban heat islands and deforestation. The activity links builds on student outcomes from activities A and B: "Finding a Mathematical Description of a Physical Relationship," and "Making a Simple Mathematical Model." This is Activity C in module 3, Using Mathematical Models to Investigate Planetary Habitability, of the resource, Earth Climate Course: What Determines a Planet's Climate? The course aims to help students to develop an understanding of our environment as a system of human and natural processes that result in changes that occur over various space and time scales.

This is a lesson about elemental spectra. Learners will compare known elemental spectra with spectra of Titan and Saturn’s rings from a spectrometer aboard the NASA Cassini spacecraft. They identify the elements visible in the planetary and lunar spectra. The activity is part of Project Spectra, a science and engineering program for middle-high school students, focusing on how light is used to explore the Solar System.

This article provides tips and strategies for effectively integrating digital media into classroom instruction. Resources provided are suitable for preschool and elementary students.

This is a lesson about the vertical dimension of the atmosphere and includes four activities. Activity 1 Introduces concepts related to distance, including length and height and units of measurement. Students are asked to make comparisons of distances. In activity 2, students learn about the vertical profile of the atmosphere. They work with a graph and plot the heights of objects and the layers of the atmosphere: troposphere, stratosphere, mesosphere, thermosphere, and exosphere. In activity 3, students learn about other forms of visual displays using satellite imagery. They compare images of the same weather feature, a hurricane, using two different images from MODIS and CALIPSO. One image is looking down on the hurricane from space, the other looks through the hurricane to display a profile of the hurricane. Activity 4 reinforces the concept of the vertical nature of the atmosphere. Students will take a CALIPSO satellite image that shows a profile of the atmosphere and use this information to plot mountains and clouds on their own graph of the atmosphere. The recommended order for the activities is to complete the first two activities on day one, and the second two activities on day two. Each day will require approximately 1 to 1.5 hours.

Video clips from federal and regional agencies show scientists at work with tools used to collect data about the climate and weather. This article, from the free, online magazine Beyond Weather and the Water Cycle, will help students visualize the tools and how they are used in the atmosphere, at sea, and other hard-to-access locations.

This is a set of three, one-page problems about calculating the volume of objects. Learners may calculate the volume of an asteroid, Vesta, or the stacking of satellites inside an atlas V rocket nose cone. Options are presented so that students may learn about the Dawn mission to asteroid Vesta through a NASA press release or about NASA's investigation of comets by viewing a NASA eClips video [5 min.]. This activity is part of the Space Math multi-media modules that integrate NASA press releases, NASA archival video, and mathematics problems targeted at specific math standards commonly encountered in middle school.

Students research archival material to examine nineteenth and early twentieth century arguments for and against women's suffrage.

This experiment is about contaminiation. Learners will go through a series of steps in which they will test and observe how detergent breaks up contamination in a guided inquiry. Following this they will complete an open inquiry in which they ask questions about variables in washing dishes and design and conduct a test to answer these questions. Includes a teacher's guide and students handouts. Video and audio clips are provided. This lesson 4 of 10 from the Dynamic Design: The Cleanroom module.

This article assembles free resources from the Water, Ice, and Snow issue of the Beyond Penguins and Polar Bears cyberzine into a unit outline based on the 5E learning cycle framework. Outlines are provided for Grades K-2 and 3-5.

The 11 books selected for inclusion in the issue of Beyond Weather and the Water Cycle devoted to climate studies range from easy readers to biographies. Each book is briefly described; all were reviewed for accuracy and appropriate reading levels for students in grades K-5. Several books deal with careers in meteorology.

This article links to resources to help teachers create their own weather stations, participate in real data projects, and assess their students' knowledge of weather tools.

This issue of the free online magazine, Beyond Penguins and Polar Bears, explores how elementary teachers can move from a study of the weather at home to the weather of the polar regions through hands-on activity, reading, and discussion.

This is an activity about visual analysis. Learners will compare and contrast images of Earth and Mars and then experiment with lenses to understand more about the instruments used to make the pictures. This is activity 1 of 9 in Mars and Earth: Science Learning Activities for After School.

In this problem-based, blended learning mondule, students will investigate what is the single - most defining trait that makes us human? Is it our highly developed speech, our imagination, creativity, or our upright walking posture? Humans have mastered fire, developed tools, art, music, recorded our history, and accomplished a countless number of other things. In this module, students will explore genetics concepts regarding inheritance, natural selection, biology of the human brain, and our hominid evolution over the last two hundred thousand years. Students will utilize guided research, and independent work to formulate an argumentative essay, and substantiating their claim with evidence from their research. When the argumentative essay is completed, students will create a project from a choice board that demonstrates their understanding of one of the concepts of our humanity.

This problem-based learning module is students will be collecting their personal health numbers in a station rotation format. After choosing their health numbers to compare, the students will create a scatter plot and line of best fit using class data. Students will do a gallery walk to compare their health numbers with their peers. The students will then create a presentation for a health fair to bring awareness to health numbers based on their personal findings and facts.