This activity illustrates the interrelationship between science and engineering in the context of extinction prevention. There are two parts to the activity. The first part challenges students to think like scientists as they generate reports on endangered species and give presentations worthy of a news channel or radio broadcast. The second part puts students in the shoes of engineers, designing ways to help the endangered species.

The purpose of this activity is to demonstrate Newton's third law of motion which states that every action has an equal and opposite reaction through a small wooden car. The Newton cars show how action/reaction works and how the mass of a moving object affects the acceleration and force of the system. Subsequently, the Newton cars provide students with an excellent analogy for how rockets actually work.

The purpose of this lesson is to teach students about the three dimensional Cartesian coordinate system. It is important for structural engineers to be confident graphing in 3D in order to be able to describe locations in space to fellow engineers.

This 5 unit of number and operations lessons explores integers in preparation for coordinate planes through 3 hands-on activities and 3 worksheets.

Students create a chart by collecting data on the number of pages of a book he/she can read in 30 minutes in increments of 5 minutes each. Students use the ordered pairs to graph their data in the first quadrant of the coordinate plane.

In this activity, students will learn how water can be polluted by algal blooms. They will grow algae with different concentrations of fertilizer or nutrients and analyze their results as environmental engineers working to protect a local water resource.

To further their understanding of sound energy, students identify the different pitches and frequencies created by a vibrating ruler and a straw kazoo. They create high- and low-pitch sound waves.

Purpose: Engages students and introduces elements needed for building a playground.

In “Playground Palooza”, students will take the role of a playground designer responding to a request for a new playground at the school. Students will learn about numerical patterns, reading and writing decimals, rounding decimals, adding, subtracting, multiplying, and dividing decimals, converting measurements, volume, measuring volume, relating volume, coordinate planes, and attributes of 2D figures. Students will determine the total area of the new playground, determine the total area for each structure you want included on your playground, determine the volume of sand needed for the sandbox, use at least three playground structures, create a table of equipment and materials including company name, cost, quantity, and totals, create a coordinate system to display the center point for each structures or area on the playground, and submit a blueprint of their playground design.

***NOTE
This PBL was created before NC adopted the NC standards for Math. Therefore this PBL also addresses: rounding decimals.

In this lesson students learn about and practice graphing, plotting points, drawing line segments, and finding the coordinates of points of intersection.

Students learn about the concept of pushing, as well as the relationship between force and mass. Students practice measurement skills using pan scales and rulers to make predictions about mass and distance. A LEGO MINDSTORMS(TM) NXT robot is used to test their hypotheses. By the end of the activity, students have a better understanding of robotics, mass and friction and the concept of predicting.

This course was created by the Rethink Education Content Development Team. This course is aligned to the NC Standards for 5th Grade Math. 

This course was created by the Rethink Education Content Development Team. This course is aligned to the NC Standards for 5th Grade Math. 

Students experience the engineering design process as they design and build accurate and precise catapults using common materials. They use their catapults to participate in a game in which they launch Ping-Pong balls to attempt to hit various targets.

Students learn what a pendulum is and how it works in the context of amusement park rides. While exploring the physics of pendulums, they are also introduced to Newton's first law of motion about continuous motion and inertia.

This project-based learning unit is a great opportunity to bring relevance to the students while learning about severe weather prediction and prevention, maps, graphs, coordinate planes, and informational reading. Students will plan and execute an emergency plan and kit to be used in case of severe weather in their community with their own families.

Music and sound are two different concepts that share much in common. Determining the difference between the two can sometimes be difficult due to the subjective nature of deciding what is or is not music. The goal of this activity is to take something constructed by students, that would be normally classified as just sound and have the class work together to make what can be perceived to be music. Students construct basic stringed instruments made of shoeboxes and rubber bands. This activity aims to increase student understanding of what distinguishes music from sound.

This activity requires students to design a set of kickball fields to accommodate 153 players in a summer league, determine the number of teams, create a schedule that allows each team to play each other team once, create umpire schedules, determine the number of kickballs needed, choose the company from which tee shirts should be purchased, and then determine if the boys charged an appropriate registration fee based on their findings. This lesson was developed by NCDPI as part of the Academically and/or Intellectually Gifted Instructional Resources Project. This lesson plan has been vetted at the state level for standards alignment, AIG focus, and content accuracy.

This lesson is from Tools 4 NC Teachers. Given a situation, students find the pattern, extend the pattern, and plot points in the coordinate grid. This is remixable.

These parent and family letters are from Tools 4 NC Teachers. Each can be used and sent home when starting Gr 5 Cluster 1. These are remixable.

This task is from Tools 4 NC Teachers. Students solve problems involving the coordinate grid. This is remixable.