Kimberly Repking

This STEM project is a highly engaging project that students look forward to year from year at my school. The project spans one week, and students will build their own wind turbine and test multiple variables. The wind turbine uses wind energy from a box fan to lift a cup of pennies. In my science classes, we also make it a competition to see who can construct a wind turbine that can lift the greatest amount of pennies. Students will research, design, and construct their entire wind turbine! C

Kinetic Potential Energy This STEM project is an engineering project that incorporates both math and science (kinetic and potential energy) concepts. It will span over a four day period. My students completed this project after a mini-unit on potential energy and kinetic energy. Students also changed one variable on their catapult at a time and took data on that change to see which change was the best for their catapult. For example, the angle that the catapult was pulled back was a variable. St

This project correlates with my unit on forces and motion in my physical science middle school class. Over a span of three days, students design a car that will protect a raw egg from breaking when it hits the ground after being on a ramp. The students will then test and modify their design. Included are directions, student reflection questions, and a rubric to assess the student's egg car. This project was highly engaging and educative in my class. Students must use their critical thinking skil

Cells, Cells, Cells! These completely student-run seven cell stations require approximately three class periods to complete. Aligned with the NGSS, these cell stations focus on these main ideas: levels of organization, structure and function of organelles, differences between plant and animal cells, and mitosis. Students will receive a packet to complete as they travel from station to station in groups. All materials needed for the stations are included in the document. Two of the stations req

MITOSIS, MITOSIS, and more MITOSIS: Get the students up and moving with a game about mitosis! NO PREP WORK! This activity could serve as a great introduction to the life cycle of a cell, and it gets students acting out each phase from interphase, mitosis (prophase, metaphase, anaphase, and telophase), and cytokinesis. Students will not realize that they are learning! You need a class size of at least twelve students to play this game.

This supply and demand game is an engaging way to teach supply and demand. Print the game peices to the supply and demand game and add a dice! It takes 3-4 players 20-30 minutes to play the game. Depending on the number of the dice rolled, students will obtain resources that can be traded with opponents to buy a house, a road, a commercial business, or a farm. Obviously, the resources that have a greater supply will have a lower demand, and vice versa. My students had a lot of fun playing this g

Frog Dissection: Student-friendly interactive notes, a visual ppt, and a quiz are included in this frog dissection product. Not able to find exactly what I needed for frog dissections myself, I created this product as a complete guide for my mini-unit on frog dissections. All you need are frogs and tools! This unit will lead students through each system of the frog's body individually, and students will extract and learn about the organs' purpose specific to that system. The following systems s

This entire game lasted about one class period. However, you could easily make it longer or shorter. This activity is centered on the Next Generation Standard: MS –LS4-4 Construct an explanation based on evidence that describes how genetic variations of traits in a population increase some individuals’ probability of surviving and reproducing in a specific environment. Students will randomly pick certain animals that have specific genotypes. Using the gene/trait table, they will have to write d

Nature of Science Stations! Get students moving and collaborating with these eight stations that focus on nature of science! These nature of science stations focus on the lab report, in particular identifying independent, dependent, and constant variables. The stations also allow students to explore modeling and a controlled experiment. Eight stations will have students doing experiments with a small amount of materials, as well as making a model with a small amount of materials. Read what eac

PUNNETT SQUARE FUN Students will choose a “mom” card and a “dad” card from this project and use Punnett squares to determine the genotype and phenotype of their child. (There are 25 mom cards for students to choose from, and 25 dad cards for students to choose from.) Each mom and dad card has 12 genotypes on the card. Students will draw what the mom looks like (mom’s phenotype), and they will draw what the dad looks like (dad’s phenotype). After each parent has a picture profile, students will c

Metric Measurement Stations: Students get a hands-on learning experience with these metric measurement stations. Students will measure length in the metric system. Students will also practice measuring mass of solids and liquids. Students will also get practice measuring the volume of regular solids (rectangular prisms and cubes), irregular solids (a rock), and liquids. You will need the following objects to do these stations: Graduated cylinders Beakers Triple beam balance or digital scale C

Ecology: This bingo game is a great review for an ecology unit! There are over 30 different bingo cards. Also included are call cards so students can play this game in a small group setting or at a station. This bingo game includes the following vocabulary words: Abiotic factor Biome Biotic Factor Carnivore Carrying Capacity Community Competition Consumer Decomposer Ecology Ecosystem Energy Pyramid Food Chain Food Web Grassland Habitat Herbivore Host Limiting Factor Mutually Beneficial Relation

This STEM project is an engaging project that makes it essential for students to know the difference between an insulator and a conductor. Students have a "budget", and they can buy materials to create a stylus. This stylus must conduct heat from their hands to the tip of their stylus. This project costed me less than $5 for 75 students to create a stylus. Check out my other STEM projects below! STEM: Wind TurbineSTEM: PeriscopesSTEM: Catapult

This resource is a great performance assessment for students to demonstrate their knowledge on one of the concepts of light: reflection. Using two mirrors which are supplied by the teacher (see how to get mirrors for cheap in the teacher notes), students will design and create their own periscope using the criteria in their homework page. The teacher just needs to explain the assignment and criteria which is on the student homework assignment and distribute the mirrors. On the day the periscope

Metric Measurement: Length Metric Measurement Length This length activity complements any metric measurement unit in a fun way. Students solve a puzzle by figuring length problems. Students will measure the a line in cm, mm, and in decameters. Students will also answer questions about using the appropriate unit in finding the distance of two objects. Each problem that they solve tells students where to place a puzzle piece in order to complete a puzzle. This activity allows students to self-c

Density, Density, Density! This five-day density unit allows students to start with a conceptual understanding of density before starting in on the density math problems. Students will interact through multiple modalities – games, simulations, a lab, real life applications, density word problems, and an assessment to measure conceptual and mathematical density ability. Below is a timeline of the unit. Included in the zip file is a much more detailed plan with helpful teacher notes. Day 1 -

Metric Measurement: This bingo game is a great review for any metric measurement unit! There are over 30 different bingo cards. I also included call cards so students can play this game in a small group setting or at a station. This bingo game includes vocabulary words from the following topics: length mass volume density temperature Looking for other fun measurement activities? Check out my metric measurement nursery rhymes here!

Metric Measurement: Volume Metric Measurement Volume This volume activity complements any metric measurement unit in a fun way. Students solve a puzzle by figuring volume problems. Students will measure the volume of regular solids, irregular solids, and liquids. Each problem that they solve tells students where to place a puzzle piece in order to complete a puzzle. This activity allows students to self-check their work. If an answer is incorrect, the puzzle will not turn out and students wil

4th Grade PARCC IAR Practice Tests can be used to help your students gain familiarity with the types of questions that may be presented to your students on the state tests. Each sheet has 12 questions, similiar to a typical state test, that can be used in class or for homework. The questions on each sheet are blended from different standards to gain a spiral review. There are 15 different question sets, which is total of 180 problems. All questions stem from Common Core 4th grade math standards.

Ecology, Ecology, Ecology! – These completely student-run twelve ecology stations require approximately one week to complete. Aligned with the NGSS, these ecology stations focus on these main ideas: food webs and food chains, adaptations, relationships among organisms, effects of resource availability on organisms, biomes, relationships among nonliving parts of an ecosystem and its organisms, and biodiversity. Students will receive a packet to complete as they travel from station to station