Creativity in Mind

I am including my students' favorite labs and activities for a physical science unit covering motion, forces and energy. The Newton's Scooter Lab is a fun and physical to review Newton's Laws of Motion using a skateboard or scooter and the students' own mass. I used my Roller Coaster Lab to review forces and energy and students had a blast designing various coaster 'prototypes.' The Friction lab, while straightforward is a hands-on approach to this concept. Finally, I am including my Energy Tran

You can use this in several science courses as it aligns very well with the Human Impact NGSS standards. This is not a new lab, but I've reformulated it a bit to include a graphing component. It also includes a link to a video that explains the concept a bit. I would not play them this until after they have done the activity. They are supposed to act like greedy tyrants- it's all part of the fun!

Add a little fun and creativity to your Chemistry/Elements/Periodic Table units! Students find this project highly engaging because they have ownership of the word they choose for their bookmark. It's a great way to review concepts related to the Periodic Table. Project description, recording sheets, analysis questions and rubric are all contained in one packet To make the bookmarks, I cut out 5 cm by 18 cm rectangles from a standard sheet of posterboard. You will get about 40 bookmarks per shee

I've done this activity from 7th through 12th grades and it's always entertaining to see what they come up with. Since they're not actually building it, they can really think out of the box (ex- nuclear energy and thermal energy become popular). I usually do this after a lesson on energy and then I will show then the OK Go, "This Too Shall Pass" video as that is the ultimate contraption to model (in my opinion). You may also wish to show them Rube Goldberg examples. Or, modify a bit and simply u

Here is a fun little lab to review the concepts of Graphing and The Scientific Method. Students will also practice taking averages of data. You probably have the supplies in a well-stocked storage room- droppers, cups, water and pennies. Enjoy!

I used this in my environmental science class but it could be useful in several classes in relationship to the heavy emphasis on environmentalism in the NGSS standards. I found that while water and air pollution were heavily covered, there was little out there to reinforce soil pollution and the types of solid waste. Therefore, I created this web quest to fill in that gap. All needed websites are embedded in the document.

I have started doing weekly readings with vocabulary because our assessments have changed to ones in which decoding from informational text is an imperative skill. This is my reading and vocabulary for graphing in science. Although graphing is a skill, it is important for students to know the 'language' of graphing so construction is a smooth process. I will be uploading a fun lab-based graphing project where students collect real-life data to graph very soon. :)

I have started doing weekly readings with vocabulary because our assessments have changed to ones in which decoding from informational text is an imperative skill. This is my reading and vocabulary for The Scientific Method. There are a great deal of vocabulary terms for this unit. Why not add a little extra reinforcement for this tricky topic? Enjoy! :)

I use this as a precursor for a study of nutrients and the digestive system. It just requires some food labels- check your recycling bin or have students bring them in. Nutrients can be a challenging topic- use some real world examples to make it more concrete. Then, since the students collect so much data, I have them make a bar graph on day two. It is a nice way to practice general graphing skills.

Depth of knowledge questions go from surface level comprehension to more complex and analytical as they go on. I have them do more in the beginning and fewer at higher comprehension levels. You could have them do all of the questions if you wanted to. This guide is for the movie, The Lorax. Enjoy!

I used this a few times throughout my environmental science course and students reported that they liked doing it. I assigned each student an individual article that they read and summarized. After a certain amount of time, they grouped up and interviewed each other to learn about the other articles. We did this when learning about microplastics, for example. However, it could be used in any discipline.

A fun way to apply the Scientific Method using Mark Rober's original Squirrel (1.0) course. I have linked the you tube video in the document. The video itself is about 20 minutes in length. With a pre- and post-discussion, this is likely a two-day activity.

I used this as an introduction to invasive species in various classes during our Human Impact unit. I followed up with my "Invasive Species Television Report" project (also available on TPT). This year, with Juniors and Seniors in my Environmental Science class I even had them film themselves like a real television report.

My Oceanography class voted to watch this movie at the end of the year. Naturally, they had to be accountable for me so I generated this to have them find the connections from our course to the movie.

Have your students review the concepts of global warming and its effects, graph construction, and graph interpretation using this self-directed activity.

This is my capstone activity for my Geologic Time Unit. It allows students the ability to show that they can navigate the Geologic Time Scale in a creative way!

Use this beautifully illustrated set of notes as your primary resource for your evolution unit or as a study guide.

Help students explore adaptations by using their favorite animal to create a fun poem. In addition, a video link is provided to illustrate the difference between physical and behavioral adaptations.

Phenomenon based learning is one of the most current pedagogical methods to enhance scientific understanding. Use this activity to introduce the concept of evolution by natural selection.