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2000 Lesson Plans

K-3        4-6        7-9       10-12

K-3 Lesson Plans

The Sound Detective Scientists by Beth Artner
In this lesson, students focus on sounds in their environment and acquire listening and inferring skills. Students become sound detective scientists by exploring their world for sounds as they ask, "What sound do I hear" and where or what is the sound coming from?"

Time To Measure by John M. Vogel
Time and length are measured in this lesson plan and volume is introduced. Students will differentiate between time, weight, length and volume as they practice their problem solving skills and will also examine estimation and probability as they measure staircases and record in notebooks.

4-6 Lesson Plans

How Many Lemons Does It Take? by April Olson
Lemon Sharks are the tool used for students to learn about different methods of estimating in this lesson plan. Students will imagine their class room is a lagoon on the Bimini Islands where they will practice estimating methods on Lemon Sharks who live in the lagoon.

Egg-streme Tessellation by Carl Busse
Students will focus upon the problem solving strategies and tessellation geometry that was used to construct an egg shaped figure. They will then use their own problem solving strategies to create individual tiling patterns that fulfill the requirements of several different assignments such as tiling a bathroom floor.

Draw An Inch, Walk A Mile by Cori Bricker
How ratios work is taught in this lesson plan where an inch is equal to a mile. Students will learn how to read and interpret scale symbols, and the importance of understanding ratios in reading such things as road atlases and in building houses.

Area Explorations by Dawn Klinge
In this lesson plan students learn how to determine how many square units cover a figure, and develop the formula for area of a rectangle. They will apply the formula to find area of irregular shaped figures and learn to use prediction, estimation, and classification within a scientific experiment that involves insects!

Where did Everyone Go? Jeannine Korus
The importance of keeping personal data and records is emphasized in this lesson plan as students bring their own "artifacts" into the classroom. They learn how historical data is determined from ancient artifacts, and how important cataloging is in maintaining the integrity of this vital information. Students get to go "on-line" and talk to real archaeologists.

Journey through the Solar System by Raymond Lau
As students participate in hands-on activities they will learn the actual size and distance of the solar system. Using scale and ratio they will compare the scale sizes of the planets to their actual sizes using such fun comparison objects as a marble, or basketball.

I'm Melting by Storie Santschi
How long does it take an ice cube to melt? Students will learn about estimation and how to use it to solve unknown problems. The example used for clarification is buying ice-cream at a store and getting it home before it melts.

7-9 Lesson Plans

Alternative Power Project by Angela Baker and Brian Sica
Students examine the existing methods for providing fuel and energy needed in our world and explore possible alternatives to these methods. They will also become familiar with what scientists are currently working on in this area.

Water Pollution by Matt O'Brien
After identifying the importance of water in our lives, students look at some issues of water pollution which hopefully will result in them becoming more environmentally conscientious individuals.

Dimensional Space: Various Perspectives by Celia Doerann-George
Space dimensions, 2D representations of 3D objects, and perspective are added upon as students explore methods for interpreting 3D forms on a 2D surface through the mastery of Linear Perspective. They will learn how to recognize and create 3D forms on paper, then extend this finally to a representation of a 4D form on paper.

Measures of Restitution by Chris Hiatt
The importance of accuracy and precision is taught in this lesson plan as students gather data in a scientific manner, and compute means from the data. They will test golf balls, basketballs, and tennis balls and measure accurately how high they bounce.

10 -12 Lesson Plans

DNA: What does it mean? by Nate Hespelt and Adriane Cej
By following a three step process, students will extract DNA from a clove of garlic, and then explore and manipulate the three dimensional structure of DNA. They will discuss what they already know about DNA, what they would like to know, and in the end, what they have learned.

Mapping the Iditarod by Susan Finlay
As students keep track of their individual musher, they learn how to accurately calculate distance traveled each day on a map of the Iditarod route in Nome, Alaska. They will also utilize the Internet to follow-up on their musher, if he drops out of the race.

Measuring The Earth: An Introduction to Spherical Geometry by Deanne Clifford
In learning to measure the earth, students will be able to identify types of arcs and angles in a circle, and the sectors, rays, lines and segments associated with them, measure them, and study surface area and volume of spheres as they are exposed to spherical geometry.

Geometry Everywhere: Fractals, Math & Form in Nature by Judy Butts
Students will be presented with the knowledge that geometry is applied to natural sciences, and recognize in fractals, a self-similar, iterative geometric process that is everywhere in their natural world. They will play the Chaos Game and learn that order is evident even in chaos.

Labor Unions in the 21st Century by Martha Yopp
In this lesson plan, students are taught the relationship between organized labor and management in the Unites States, Europe, and Japan. They will be encouraged to ponder the effects of labor unions in the United States.

An Attitude of Change by Robin Schwartz
Change in the business world is examined in this lesson plan as students discuss such things as globalization and flexibility. A major theme in this lesson is that of attitude and how it affects the success of corporations.

Renting: Living with Rommates & Credit Report Repairs by Shawna Frisbee
Two short lessons are presented here. Renting: Living with Roommates discusses how to find a roommate and what decisions need to be made when selecting a roommate. Students learn what to look for in a rental, and look at the advantages and disadvantages of renting.

In Credit Report Repairs students learn how people can repair their credit, once the damage has been done. They practice credit card management while they keep track of purchases, expenditures and finance charges as they play credit card games.