Use this interactive site to enhance students' spelling and vocabulary while refreshing their memories in history, geography, language, science, and entertainment. It is available to use on line or you can purchase leveled apps for the I-Phone.
This investigation is a year round study of the phenology of a schoolyard.
How has animal care in zoos improved by including behavioral training into a keeper’s duties? This activity is designed to start your students in recognizing themselves as scientists and thinking critically about problem-solving. The goal is to teach concepts through discovery and to encourage using scientific thought processes. As with all lessons provided, please feel free to adapt them according to your students’ abilities. You may find it more successful to lead activities and discussions as a whole group rather than using individual Research Plan sheets. Certain scientific vocabulary may or may not be appropriate for your students’ level of understanding. Take these ideas, make them your own and your students will have a greater chance at success.
The students will observe a maple tree throughout the year and recognize changes in weather and phenology using their 5 senses.
This activity is a tree leaf collection, identification, and display of dried and pressed leaves. It teaches students about distinguishing leaf characteristics as well as a way to display and label their collection.
All cells, organs and tissues of a living organism are built of molecules. Some of them are small, made from only a few atoms. There is, however, a special class of molecules that make up and play critical roles in living cells. These molecules can consist of many thousands to millions of atoms. They are referred to as macromolecules (or large biomolecules).
The Tree of Life is a multi-authored, Internet distributed project containing information about phylogeny and biodiversity. The Tree of Life can be used to locate information about a particular group of organisms through their taxonomy.
This activity is an investigation into the relationship between alkane length and boiling points. Students develop a mathematical model of this relationship and use it to make predictions and error analysis.
This is a field and classroom activity in which students will observe tulip growth and identify and describe the parts of the tulip flower.
The U.S. Geological Survey reports on the latest news affecting the earth today, as well as providing a wealth of data, reports, and information.
How would an ethogram for your pet compare to an ethogram of a wild animal? This activity is designed to start your students in recognizing themselves as scientists and thinking critically about problem-solving. The goal is to teach concepts through discovery and to encourage using scientific thought processes. As with all lessons provided, please feel free to adapt them according to your students’ abilities. You may find it more successful to lead activities and discussions as a whole group as opposed to having your students’ work in small groups. Certain scientific vocabulary may or may not be appropriate for your students’ level of understanding. Take these ideas, make them your own and your students will have a greater chance at success.
Understanding Biodiversity presents an overview of biodiversity, its importance and relevance to humans, all living things, and the Earth. It includes species pages and a template to engage and involve students in real-life data collection.
In this lab exercise, students of intermediate-level French will watch a short video on brain plasticity from the universcience VOD collection online.
A variety of symbiotic relationships exist between sharks and other marine species in this segment from Nature.
Discover what evolution is through a case study of a Hawaiian snail species' survival. [7:20]
Learn about the evolutionary process of sexual selection, a specific form of natural selection. [12:09]
Learn about the contributions of Gregor Mendel to genetics. [1:21]
This activity is a teacher-guided inquiry activity of the sorting or grouping of Minnesota critters according to student driven criteria or purpose of their groupings. Teacher/student questions and discussion should be encouraged after this activity to emphasize that awareness of the criteria or purpose of certain groupings may be important before beginning an investigation.
Learning Assistants are used to facilitate student discussion in peer instruction during clicker questions (i.e., classroom response systems), by asking Socratic questions, emphasizing reasoning, and probing student thinking.
This activity allows students to investigate classification and create their own dichotomous key. Discussion will include classification of items in everyday life.