Tuesday, April 16, 2013

Engaging students in science with lessons

Here you will find some lesson plan ideas that can be used by teachers or parents to get the creative juices flowing for a variety of age students. These lessons can be used to engage your student with direct ideas or might spark a new idea! 

 

Motion and Force
How and why do objects move? This lesson allows students to learn hands on by experimenting with weight and objects. They can also make predictions how the materials will act with the friction created in the motion.




Sailboats
Time to be the captain of the ship! At this link, students can learn more about what makes a sailboat float so well. Students can use materials to make their own sailboats. Students will learn more about how the parts of the sailboat and could experiment with what is the most effective way to construct their boat to hold the most weight.




Weather By Our Senses
It is important that students can rely on their senses to teach them about the world around them. Teaching students the direct effect the weather has on our daily lives can be one way to do this. In this lesson you will find a way to use senses to relate real life experiences to the students. They can go outside and use their senses and be the reporter!




Water Cycle By Acting
Time to get students involved by acting. This link gives ideas of how to get students started thinking in group work by each acting out a portion of the water cycle. Students can guess each others part of the cycle and put it together to make it complete. This can serve as a reminder of the steps of the water cycle and can be refereed to later in place of a text book. 




Gravity in Action
This link allows students to experiment with gravity by using various objects. The students can enhance their comprehension and make predictions about the next object they will drop. You can show students that gravity is a force that stays the same by the experiments produced in this lesson with dropping and rolling objects from the same height. 
 



Watching Our Neighbor... The Moon
Send students outside at night time to watch the moon change across the sky over a 28 day period. This lesson allows you to help students explore a time line, try a different method of recording, and allow them to do research of their own. The conversations built with the recording of the moon will help make connections of how and why the moon changes. 




Does Winter Clothing Make Heat?
Use the section titled Does Winter Clothing Make Heat?  found within this link at the bottom of the webpage. This experiment will allow students to relate how their body gives off heat and how their coat can hold in that heat. It is important for students to learn the process of collecting data in an experiment in a hands on way.







Fossil Footsteps
To help students learn to recall on background information, this link allows students to learn about fossils from dinosaurs and then put their knowledge into action. Students will also get to use their creative side and make their own fossil of a dinosaurs out of Model Magic or clay. To make sure the students have a clear understanding, they can write a story to connect their fossil creation to the dinosaurs.







Do Oil and Water Mix?
When students mix oil and water, they will see the reaction it has. This link gives further information for students to understand why it is that oil and water will never mix when just those solutions are added. After students complete this experiment you could ask them to think of other solutions that might help oil and water combine.




Rotting Food
Looking at rotting food is something students can relate to and makes an effortless connection to science. This lesson will help relate bacteria and fungi to a slice of molding bread. There is so much to learn from the food we eat and when students can see it first hand they will absorb the information. Try looking at other foods as well!

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