| Name |
Description |
| How do Objects Move | Engineering Design Challenge: | In this unit, students explore and explain the many different ways that an object moves and how its properties affect its movements. In one lesson ("In What Ways"), students predict and test their predictions on how different objects will move when gently pushed on their desks. In "Do All Tops Spin Alike?," students use different materials to construct their own tops and test its movements. "Making Objects Move" introduces the concept of acceleration and allows students to use different sizes and types of balls and other materials to build tracks that will be used to stop the ball at a certain location. "Playground Equipment" gives an engineering experience by engaging students in a competition with a given scenario and asking them to design, test, and re-design (if necessary) a functioning piece of new playground equipment (the terms "force," "motion," "gravity," and "simple machine" are introduced). |
| Learning About Mealworms: | In this unit, students learn about metamorphosis and how animals change from birth to the adult stage through observing and collecting data as mealworm larvae progress through their life cycle to the adult stage (beetles). |
| Magnification: | These lessons allow students to explore how magnifiers work by using different types of magnifiers to observe classroom objects and their own creations. |
| Observing and Sorting: | In this unit, students learn to make observations that clearly distinguish specific objects from others and how to sort items by different attributes (eg, color, size, weight). |
| Properties of the Sun: | These two lesson plans provide projects that allow students to 1) design, create, and test shade structures using given materials (connecting to the engineering design process) and 2) explore harmful and beneficial properties of the Sun through observing the effects of exposure or non-exposure of certain materials to sunlight and heat. |
| Tracking Growth and Comparing Offspring: | In "How Do We Grow," students are asked to bring in pictures of themselves as infants and as they look now. Teachers record height and weight measurements (ideally at the beginning and end of the year) to illustrate how the students change and grow throughout the year; discussion is centered on the needs for growth and similarities and differences between the students and their parents. In "Comparing Parents," using pictures of animal babies and adults, students play a game and discuss how babies change to look more or less like their parents. |
| What do Living Things Need?: | In this unit, teachers allow students to explain how they know something is living and to identify the needs of living things. |
| What Makes Objects Move?: | In this unit, students use different objects and observations to explore what factors influence an objects' motion. |
