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  • Lesson Plans

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    Daily Dos are sensemaking tasks teachers and parents can use to engage their students in authentic, relevant science learning.  Students actively try to figure out how the world works (science) or how to design…

  • Picture-Perfect STEM Lesson Plans Book Packs

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    Picture-Perfect STEM Lesson Plans Book Packs

  • Lesson Plan 3: Swinging Pendulums

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    In this lesson, students continue to explore the forces acting on swing set equipment and the motion that results. Science activities focus on balanced and unbalanced forces as demonstrated by pendulums. Lessons learned…

  • Culturally Relevant Pedagogy and the 5E Lesson Plan

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  • Lesson Plan 1: Earth’s Sensational Seasons

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    In this lesson, students explore the concept of the four seasons and how the changing seasons affect plant development. They will begin to understand that seasonal changes are caused by Earth’s tilt as it rotates around…

  • Lesson Plan 1: Forces Push Back

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    This lesson introduces students to the module and the culminating challenge of the module, the Swing Set Makeover Design Challenge. A video, discussions, and a trip to the school playground help students connect to the…

  • Lesson Plan 2: Slippery Slide Design

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    In this lesson, students investigate Newton’s laws of motion and apply their learning to make a more efficient ramp on which a car will travel. This learning activity is directly connected to the final challenge in…

  • Lesson Plan 2: Our Container Garden–Design Time

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    This lesson introduces students to the engineering design process (EDP), the process they will use to design and create their container garden. In this lesson, students work through the first steps of the EDP to develop…

  • Lesson Plan 3: Our Container Garden–Planting Time

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    In this lesson, students continue to use the engineering design process (EDP) to create the class container garden. Students move into the Try phase as they construct the garden. Through the construction and planting of…

  • Lesson Plan 4: Swing Set Makeover Design Challenge

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    This lesson serves as the capstone of the module and challenges students to complete their swing set makeovers. The science and mathematics activities guide student teams through building a model of the proposed designs…

  • Developing Dispositions for Indigenous Science Knowledge to Design and Assess Lesson Plans in Elementary Environmental Science

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    This article presents a framework to design lesson plans for elementary science teachers using insights from a summer-long research experience for teachers (RET) workshop (National Science Foundation, 2021) to learn…

  • Authentic Assessment: Using 5-E Lesson Plan Development to Evaluate Science Content Learning With Preservice Teachers

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    In recent years, the value of using authentic assessments to evaluate student learning has been discussed at all levels. The use of authentic assessments, in the use of lesson plans, has proven to be a valuable tool for…

  • Designing Units and Lessons

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    Designing Units and Lessons Select lab experiments, readings, discussions, lectures, and other learning activities based on what students should learn and explicitly link them together in the unit. One example architecture for designing integrated instructional units is the BSCS 5E model, explained in Translating the…

  • A Lesson in Geospatial Inquiry

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    A Lesson in Geospatial Inquiry Geospatial Inquiry is an educational framework that offers students an opportunity to engage with, and become curious about, geospatial data for a defined purpose. We define Geospatial Inquiry as: “Asking and answering a question through the analysis and communication of data that is…

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