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Book Chapter
Discovering Sand and Sand Paintings
This activity blends social studies and art with math and science. First, students will explore the visible characteristics of sand, and then they will make Navajo-style sand paintings with paper, glue, and colored sand. In the process, they will hon...
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Heat Exchange in Air, Water, and Soil
The Earth is composed, at least at the surface, of soil/rock, water, and air. How do the heat exchange properties of these three very different substances compare, and what effect, if any, do they have on climate and weather? This activity represents...
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Developing a Model of the Earth’s Inner Structure
How much do your students know about the Earth’s interior? This activity will provide them with a hands-on experience, as well as with appropriate terms and concepts. Students discover what makes a good model as they first choose a fruit or vegetab...
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Investigating Perception and Illusion
For a motivating and baffling experience, try this investigation of perceptual illusions and their causes. It allows students to observe, analyze, and compare a variety of optical illusions, and also to create their own optical illusions with pencil,...
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Determining the Relationship Between Height and Hand Length
For a motivating and baffling experience, try this investigation of perceptual illusions and their causes. It allows students to observe, analyze, and compare a variety of optical illusions, and also to create their own optical illusions with pencil,...
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Exploring Cellular Shape Using Area
In this activity, students are challenged to maximize the area enclosed within the limited perimeter of a string “cell membrane,” using area formulas as they do so. This is an open-ended activity that will challenge groups of students to apply ma...
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Surveying Science and Mathematics on the Internet
In this activity, students will explore the internet for interesting science and mathematics websites. They will be guided by an activity sheet as they identify, summarize, analyze, reflect on, and compare websites. After reviewing their sites, stude...
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Please Pass the Pollen: Flowering Plants, Pollination, and Insect Pollinators
This high-interest activity provides an opportunity for students to learn more about the natural world while they hone their investigatory skills. In the activity, student groups investigate pollination, insect behavior, and flower structure. They wi...
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Examining Current Events in Science, Mathematics, and Technology
The national standards in science and mathematics call for these subjects to be taught from personal and social perspectives, thus strengthening students’ decision-making skills. Preeminent science educator Paul DeHart Hurd called for “a curricul...
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This activity is an exciting and highly interactive opportunity for students to exercise their creativity and design skills. Working in cooperative groups, students are challenged to explore the geometry of tower design and construction, first by exp...
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Designing and Constructing a Load-Bearing Structure
We rely on many structures to bear loads. Examples such as bridges, chairs, shelves, tall buildings, and even our own legs must support weight consistently and effectively. But where do the human-designed examples come from? Who designs these structu...
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Investigating the Pinhole Camera and Camera Obscura
In this activity, students explore the nature of light, including the fact that it travels in straight lines, by building and using two visual tools. The first is a simple pinhole camera—a box with a pinhole opening. The second is a camera obscura�...
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Recording Images Using a Simple Pinhole Camera
In this lesson, students develop and expand their observational skills and technological understanding by building and operating a pinhole camera. The interdisciplinary connections are in the realm of application in this motivating activity. The less...
Book Chapter
We see, use, and enjoy levers daily—in the operation of pliers, the action of a seesaw, or the beauty of an Alexander Calder mobile. In fact, parts of the human body are levers; think of the knee, elbow, and other joints as fulcrums, and the long b...
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This activity involves an exploration of density. Why does oil float on water? How does drain cleaner sink down into the clogged pipe right through standing water? These questions will be answered as students make a layered “parfait” of colored l...
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This inquiry activity should be used before students learn about velocity and distance versus time graphs. Students will discover how the slope of a distance versus time graph is related to the speed of the object....
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Although this lab is not an inquiry activity, it is very important in learning about acceleration and mass. It is a deeply held misconception among students that objects of different masses fall at different rates. Simply explaining that this is not ...
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This lab is an inquiry activity to be used before discussing inertia. Out of necessity to explain the observation, a short discussion of inertia is included, but teachers should certainly spend more time making this concept concrete. The activity wil...
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This lab introduces students to the idea of recoil and how conservation of momentum can be used to explain it. Many people use action/reaction to explain recoil, but conservation of momentum can be used equally well. Before shooting a gun, there is z...
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This inquiry activity should be performed after students have learned about momentum, but before they learn about conservation of momentum. Students will discover that when two objects push off each other, the momentum must be equal but in opposite d...
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This inquiry activity is performed by students after they learn about momentum and energy, but before they discuss conservation of momentum or energy. If students have never seen a Newton’s Cradle before, put one on your desk a week before this act...
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This inquiry activity should be completed before discussing with students that a projectile’s motion in the vertical direction is independent of its motion in the horizontal direction. As long as students use their apparatus carefully and don’t f...
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This inquiry activity should be done before students have studied the operation of a first-class lever. The activity could be used when discussing simple machines or torque. Although it involves the use of a lever, the activity is not really about si...
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This is an inquiry activity in which students discover what a radian is. Some students may already know how many degrees are in a radian or how many radians are in a circle, but they rarely know the definition of a radian. Knowing the definition will...
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This lab is an inquiry activity in that students will likely not know which direction the marble will travel and will discover it with some guidance. It also reinforces the method of preparing a hypothesis before performing an inquiry activity. Altho...
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This lab is purely a thought experiment. Although students are given an introduction to angular speed and tangential speed, they will discover the relationship between the two in this activity. The lab is an inquiry activity in that students do not k...
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This inquiry activity should be performed before students have learned about acceleration but after they have learned about speed. Students should have already completed distance versus time graphs for objects traveling at constant speed (see Lab 1)....
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This inquiry activity is intended to be an introduction to moment of inertia beyond just mathematical calculations. It provides some background in moment of inertia and allows students to discover that the distribution of mass in the object affects i...
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Although not inquiry, this activity is important for students to understand what an ellipse is and what a focus is, and to break misconceptions about Earth’s orbit being highly elliptical. This is the perfect place to check to see if students have ...
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This lab is an inquiry activity in that students do not know the answer and have probably never experienced this phenomenon. Most students have seen that water in U-tubes is always equal height on both sides. This lab will be both a discrepant event ...
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This activity is one for which you can find a lot of different explanations on the internet, but most of them are wrong. Some say that the soap is ejected from the back of the boat. Others say that water is ejected from the back of the boat. Still ot...
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This activity will help students see that a low center of mass helps objects balance. This is important engineering in car and motorcycle racing and robotics. This activity is inquiry in that students would probably predict that you could not get one...
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This activity is inquiry because students have likely never used this method for determining center of mass. The activity is also useful when building soda bottle rockets for estimating the center of pressure. Students can make a cardboard cutout of ...
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This lab is an inquiry activity if it is done before the discussion of how center of mass and balance are related. However, students should have an idea of what center of mass is before they start the lab. Students should see that when the center of ...
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This inquiry activity should be completed before students have learned about spring constants. It should be pointed out to students that if a rubber band or spring is stretched too much, the spring constant is not constant. Graphs will vary based on ...
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Although this would not be considered a standard lab, it does help students with projects and other labs that involve the combinations of springs or rubber bands. Even if the activity is not used elsewhere, it allows students one more chance to pract...
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This activity is inquiry because students should not yet know the equation for centripetal force. Although they will not exactly derive the equation from this lab, they will determine that there is a direct relationship between force, mass, and veloc...
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This lab is not an inquiry activity but will help students understand the meaning of average velocity. Students do not easily understand from a textbook that an object’s velocity changes over a period of acceleration. They have difficulty understan...
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This activity is inquiry because students have not yet been exposed to the idea of gravitational potential energy being converted into kinetic energy. Students should be able to measure this by performing this activity. They will compare the velocity...
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Teachers may want to show students a completed soda can vehicle because the written instructions can be difficult to follow for some students. These cans can travel a long distance (an entire school hallway is possible). Soda cans may have sharp edge...