Energy

In this video, the creator shows how he designed a chain reaction in which a tiny block topples a much larger one. Teachers may want to introduce the video using actual blocks. "How could we topple a large block (or a book) using a tiny block?&q ...

The book, Energy All Around, introduces students to the concept of energy,  describes some of the many forms energy can take and gives examples of how energy can be transferred and transformed. It is available to educators as a free ebook from E ...

OK Go’s music video, “This Too Shall Pass,” was created by musicians, artists, and engineers working collaboratively to perfectly synchronize the events in a Rube Goldberg-style chain reaction. The video provides multiple opportunit ...

This nonfiction text, The 12 Biggest Breakthroughs in Energy Transfer, by M. M. Eboch, introduces students to many of our major sources of energy. It tells the stories of how technologies were developed to allow us to access these energy resources. I ...

In this hands-on activity, students apply the engineering design process to create prototype toys with moving parts. They set up electric circuits using batteries, wire, and motors, and plan project materials to meet budget constraints. This act ...

In this lesson, students will learn that waterwheels are machines that convert the energy of falling water into power that can grind wheat into flour, saw timber, and make work easier. After investigating what this technology can do, students create ...

In this lesson, students use the engineering design process to solve a problem. They have to figure out how to design a device that will enable them to listen to a mystery sound that is being made by a device hidden in an insulated box. Through this ...

  This activity builds on student learning from the related resource “Designing Electric Circuits: Hidden Alarm.” Students use the engineering design process to develop a solution to a problem: how to create a dance pad that light ...

In this lesson students use the engineering design process to develop a solution to a problem: how to use a circuit to create a hidden alarm.  Students are encouraged to develop their own ideas of what problems they want to solve with their alar ...

This YouTube video shows how to create a paper spiral that will spin as a result of heat produced from a lamp using an incandescent bulb. Teachers can use this video to recreate the device and perform a classroom demonst ...

This two-part lesson plan focuses on the question, "How can you plan and conduct an experiment to explain how speeds change when objects collide?" It is the second lesson of a unit developed to explore this question. The lesson starts with ...

This resource is part of a two unit curriculum designed for fourth-graders using the 5E Instructional Model (Engage, Explore, Explain, Elaborate and Evaluate) to support students as they investigate the effect that height and other variables hav ...

In Feel the Heat, students follow the engineering design process to build a solar hot water heater and redesign their device to see how big a temperature change they can get by changing different variables. The phenomenon of energ ...

In this culuminating activity, the students will be connecting the scientific phenomena of how electric circuits work into their everyday lives.   Students will be working in pairs to design and wire a shoebox “room” t ...

This resource provides recipes for conductive and insulating dough that students can use to build squishy circuits. Students learn that a closed circuit is needed in order for electricity to flow from the battery pack to light the bulb. Once the&n ...

Sled Wars is an interactive simulation that allows students to explore what happens when objects collide. By crashing a virtual sled into a row of snowmen, students can observe how variables affect energy transfer in a collision. They can change the ...

This article provides suggestions for implementing the Engineering is Elementary (EiE) solar oven curriculum in the context of the Next Generation Science Standards. The authors share one teacher’s experience as she guides her class through the ...

This web seminar provides an introduction to the Next Generation Science Standards, including the Practices, Disciplinary Core Ideas, and Crosscutting Concepts. The presenters chose lessons in an energy unit to show NGSS in action in a classroom. The ...

This engineering lesson is part of An Educators Guide to the Engineering Design Process Grades 3-5 created by NASA to guide students in understanding how humans can be protected from the temperature variations found on the Moon. To understand the cha ...

This article from Science and Children provides ideas for using the trade book, The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind, as a foundation for a lesson on generators. This beautiful book is the inspiring true story of a teenager in Malawi who built a generator ...

This article helps teachers understand the complexity of teaching about energy and gives suggestions for making this topic accessible to elementary students. The focus is on introducing the concepts of energy and energy transfer through marble collis ...

Students are given a scenario/problem that needs to be solved:  Their school is on a field trip to the city to listen to a rock band concert. After arriving at the concert, the students find out that the band’s instruments were d ...

In this lesson students build and then compare four different solar cookers. They measure the temperature of water in the cooker and graph changes over time. There are many possible variations of this lesson, so the teacher will have to determine how ...

This lesson is the second in a unit on electricity. It begins with a whole class discussion of a flashlight and how it works. Students are then challenged to light a bulb using a battery and a wire. They use science notebooks to record their progress ...

When I teach sound or first introduce students to the idea of observation using our listening skills, I use two different videos. This is the first one. It is a video where Andrew Shum uses 10 different household objects to create a modern music vide...

This is the second video I use when introducing the concept of sound or when I want to give the students practice on using their listening skills. I follow the same method as for the first video where I hide the video and ask the students to guess...

Future Goals - Hockey Scholar™ brings science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) concepts to life using the exciting, fast-paced game of hockey. Through immersive real-life simulations, students build their understanding of fundamental STE...

Students will examine the growth, composition, history, and uses of corn through a close reading activity, discussion of renewable and non-renewable resources, and hands-on exploration of bioplastics made from corn.

From TeachEngineering - Students learn about providing healthcare in a global setting and the importance of wearing protective equipment when treating patients with infectious diseases like Ebola. They learn about biohazard suits, heat transfer throu...

From TeachEngineering - As part of a design challenge, students learn how to use a rotation sensor (located inside the casing of a LEGO® MINDSTORMS ® EV3 motor) to measure how far a robot moves with each rotation. Through experimentation and measurem...

This is a set of 12 science posters. They make a good supplement for many Next Generation Science lessons. There is one poster for kinetic energy and one for potential energy. These are the two major categories under which all types of energy fall. T...

From TeachEngineering - Students use potatoes to light an LED clock (or light bulb) as they learn how a battery works in a simple circuit and how chemical energy changes to electrical energy. As they learn more about electrical energy, they better un...

From TeachEngineering - That heat flows from hot to cold is an unavoidable truth of life. People have put a lot of effort into stopping this natural physical behavior, however all they have been able to do is slow the process. Student teams investiga...

From TeachEngineering - Students design and build a model city powered by the sun! They learn about the benefits of solar power, and how architectural and building engineers integrate photovoltaic panels into the design of buildings.

From TeachEngineering - Students observe a model waterwheel to investigate the transformations of energy involved in turning the blades of a hydro-turbine. They work as engineers to create model waterwheels while considering resources such as time an...

From TeachEngineering - Students learn about using renewable energy from the sun for heating and cooking as they build and compare the performance of four solar cooker designs. They explore the concepts of insulation, reflection, absorption, conducti...

From TeachEngineering - Students learn how engineers transform wind energy into electrical energy by building their own miniature wind turbines and measuring the electrical current they produce. They explore how design and position affect the electri...

From TeachEngineering - Students conduct a simple experiment to model and explore the harmful effects of acid rain (vinegar) on living (green leaf and eggshell) and non-living (paper clip) objects.

From TeachEngineering - Working as if they are engineers who work for (the hypothetical) Build-a-Toy Workshop company, students apply their imaginations and the engineering design process to design and build prototype toys with moving parts. They set...

From TeachEngineering - Students construct small-sized model rocket-powered boats—"aqua-thrusters"—that are made from film canisters propelled by carbon dioxide gas produced from a chemical reaction between antacid tablets and water. They make predic...

From TeachEngineering - Through a teacher demonstration using water, heat and food coloring, students see how convection moves the energy of the Sun from its core outwards. Students learn about the three different modes of heat transfer—convection, c...

From TeachEngineering - In this activity, students learn how engineers use solar energy to heat buildings by investigating the thermal storage properties of some common materials: sand, salt, water and shredded paper. Students then evaluate the usefu...

From TeachEngineering - Students explore how different materials (sand, gravel, lava rock) with different water contents on different slopes result in landslides of different severity. They measure the severity by how far the landslide debris extends...

Part of 4th grade energy unit. I adapted the typical lesson structure to give it an engineering feel and allow students to apply the engineering design process we've been using in STEM class. For the exit ticket, I showed them a desk lamp plugged int...

From TeachEngineering - In the everyday electrical devices we use — calculators, remote controls and cell phones — a voltage source such as a battery is required to close the circuit and operate the device. In this hands-on activity, students use bat...

From TeachEngineering - Students explore how sound waves move through liquids, solids and gases in a series of simple sound energy experiments. Understanding the properties of sound and how sound waves travel helps engineers determine the best room s...

From TeachEngineering - To further their understanding of sound energy, students identify the different pitches and frequencies created by a vibrating ruler and a straw kazoo. They create high- and low-pitch sound waves.

Scientists and Engineers are Diligent

Scientists and Engineers are Inspired

Scientists and Engineers are Thinkers

Developing and Using Models

Scientists and Engineers are Imaginative

Scientists and Engineers are Patient

Scientists and Engineers are Visionary

Scientists and Engineers are Confident

Scientists and Engineers are Courageous

Scientists and Engineers are Innovative

Scientists and Engineers are Clever

Scientists and Engineers are Inventive

Scientists and Engineers are Persistent

Scientists and Engineers are Creative

Scientists and Engineers are Fearless

Scientists and Engineers are Risk Takers

Scientists and Engineers Use Design Process

Scientists and Engineers Use Idea Development

Scientists and Engineers Use Modification

Connecting literacy and science through an elementary biomimicry lesson. Upper elementary unit that combines literacy and science in an engaging manner where students solve a real-world problem by mimicking nature.

This folder contains lesson plans for elementary classes to complete a STEM project over the period of one week. It also contains resources for the STEM week. Rubrics for each grade level are included. Google Slides that explain the week to teachers ...