As students are reviewing odd and even numbers, students first sketch out a bug that has odd or even features. Students then use Tinkercad to turn their sketch into a 3D design to be printed.

Students can work individually or in groups of 3 or 4 to create a solar oven out of a pizza box. Students are trying to figure out the best way to make a solar oven in order to melt the chocolate and marshmallow in the S’more. Students will be given a group of objects and tell them the basis of how to create a solar oven. The oven will need to be placed in direct sunlight for most of the day. This experiment works best on a very hot, sunny day.

In order to contextualize the Energy unit, students are tasked to engineer a bungee cord that will optimize the enjoyment of a doll’s bungee jump. To do this, students first develop the mathematical patterns through inquiry on gravitational energy, kinetic energy, and elastic energy. Once the patterns have been established, students further build on their spreadsheet coding skills, in order to use computational thinking to create a program that will help predict the length of bungee cord necessary for a variety of situations.

This unit is centered on designing a shoe for a customer. Students decide on a particular type of shoe that they want to design and utilize ideas of force, impulse, and friction to meet the needs of a particular customer. Force plates are used study the relationship between force, time, and impulse to allow students to get the mathematical models that allow them to make data informed decisions about their shoe design.

Students will design a personal landing carrier to land on Planet X. The carrier will house an explorer (a raw egg) that can land successfully near a given target
from a set height with the following constraints:

The landing carrier must:
1. Hit a target area on the planet
2. Protect the explorer (egg) during landing.
3. Allow the explorer to exit the lander to
conduct scientific excursions. (15 seconds
or less).
4. Nothing can be used on the floor (to
cushion)

Day 1- Teacher will begin lesson by going over the learning purpose - that the weight of an object after an interaction is the same weight it would be before (the sum of parts equals the whole). Students will be given a small canvas (i.e. - small cloth canvas, cardstock, cardboard, etc.). Teachers will allow students to use various materials to create a masterpiece (i.e. - paint, buttons, pom poms, etc.). Each group would be tasked to weigh objects BEFORE adding them to their masterpiece (for paint or other consumables - weight bottle before and after use). Students would TRY to prove the teacher wrong by saying that the sum of their masterpiece was greater or less than the sum of its parts. Day 2 - Students would present whether they proved the teacher right or wrong, then peers would analyze their work by asking clarifying questions.

This article describes covert and overt active engagement strategies for use with elementary students. Find the Question templates are included for use with informational text.

This story, featuring a pigeon named Amelia, takes place in New York City. Amelia's owner, a young girl named Maria, receives a gift from her grandfather-a camera specially designed for strapping on to a pigeon along with copies of old photographs taken of New York City landmarks. Suddenly, Amelia's flights around the city take on new relevance; she visits the Bronx Zoo, Central Park and Battery Park to take updated pictures of those same landmarks from her "birds-eye" perspective. Through Amelia's adventures, and with some help from a NASA scientist, Maria learns about the history of aerial images, the use of images to detect changes over time, the significance of color, texture and shape in interpreting those images, and the importance of images taken from today's NASA satellites to our understanding of Earth.

Welcome to the exciting world of aeronautics. The term aeronautics originated in France, and was derived from the Greek words for “air” and “to sail.” It is the study of flight and the operation of aircraft. This educator guide explains basic aeronautical concepts, provides a background in the history of aviation, and sets them within the context of the flight environment (atmosphere, airports, and navigation).

The activities in this guide are designed to be uncomplicated and fun. They have been developed by NASA Aerospace Education Services Program specialists, who have successfully used them in countless workshops and student programs around the United States. The activities encourage students to explore the nature of flight, and experience some real-life applications of mathematics, science, and technology.

The subject of flight has a wonderful power to inspire learning.

 To launch:  Read “Albert’s Alphabet” by Leslie Tryon Students will then “build” the letters of their name using provided materials or you can assign groups of students letters, so that the class can “build” the alphabet. 

After identifying technology in agriculture, this lesson will address current agriculture technology that is of current public interest.

 This is a hands-on project that uses George Orwell's novel, Animal Farm, as the touchstone text. Students work in groups to construct a functioning windmill that can generate electricity. Each student has a role based on the characters in the book. There are also segments of the project that focus on extracting key information from the text.

This article includes links to expository text for students in grades K-1, 2-3, and 4-5 about the climate differences between the Arctic and Antarctica.

In this lesson, students will design a packaging system to keep their apple slices as fresh as possible over 24 hours. They will use various materials as part of their package and will be able to place apples in different temperature environments for testing (in classroom, by a window, or outside, for example).

Architectural and Structural Engineering provides learning opportunities for students interested in preparing for careers in such areas as architecture, industrial design, and civil engineering.

This issue of the free online magazine, Beyond Penguins and Polar Bears, explores the amazing birds that live in or migrate to the polar regions. The issue was co-produced with the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. In addition to content knowledge articles and lesson plans, the issue includes information about bird-themed citizen science programs from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology.

This article assembles free resources from the Arctic and Antarctic Birds 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.

This article discusses how to use murals as an interdisciplinary, cooperative activity to blend science, art, and math concepts.

This article provides an overview of using rubrics as a method of assessment and discusses technological tools that facilitate the creation of rubrics.

Through this earth science curricular unit, student teams are presented with the scenario that an asteroid will impact the Earth. In response, their challenge is to design the location and size of underground caverns to shelter the people from an uninhabitable Earth for one year. Driven by this adventure scenario, student teams 1) explore general and geological maps of their fictional state called Alabraska, 2) determine the area of their classroom to help determine the necessary cavern size, 3) learn about map scales, 4) test rocks, 5) identify important and not-so-important rock properties for underground caverns, and 6) choose a final location and size.