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This lesson utilizes an informational text intended to support reading in the content area. The article describes a new nanotechnology technique that uses computers to rapidly and accurately assemble molecules that can fight cancer. The article also emphasizes how scientific research is supported monetarily through public (NSF) and private partnerships. The lesson plan includes a note-taking guide, text-dependent questions, a writing prompt, answer keys, and a writing rubric. Numerous options to extend the lesson are also included.

Type: Lesson Plan

This lesson is designed to support reading in the content area. In this lesson, students will analyze an informational text that describes a recent experiment that helps to prove that larger brain size could indicate higher intelligence within carnivorous mammals. The research was conducted at nine U.S. zoos and included 140 animals from 39 mammalian carnivore species. The lesson plan includes text-dependent questions, a writing prompt, sample answers, and a writing rubric.

Type: Lesson Plan

In this lesson, students will analyze an informational text designed to support reading in the content area. An ancient coloring pigment is leading to new research in magnetic fields and superconductivity. Will this lead to new technologies involving quantum computers? The lesson plan includes a note-taking guide, text-dependent questions, a writing prompt, answer keys, and a writing rubric. Options to extend the lesson are also included.

Type: Lesson Plan

In this lesson, students will read a text that describes new and creative technologies that are being used in climate research to study high-altitude glaciers and map how they are changing. The text describes the ways in which the use of drones with time-lapse thermal camera systems are being used to gather data over the Peruvian Andes more effectively than satellites or planes. The text also describes some of the researchers' early findings based on the data they have gathered through the use of these drones. The text used in this lesson is designed to support reading in the content area. The lesson includes a note-taking guide, text-dependent questions and a writing prompt, sample answer keys, and a writing rubric.

Type: Lesson Plan

This is a ray drawing activity to aid students in their understanding of how virtual images are formed by plane mirrors, and how the image size and distance from the mirror compare to those of the object.

Type: Lesson Plan

This engaging activity is a fun game requiring a teacher to team up with a student and provide insider information before the activity begins. The team will cleverly involve the rest of the class in a guessing game where students must apply logic and their understanding of variables to devise questions aimed at figuring out the trick, which allows the chosen student and the teacher to always know what the other is thinking! The concept of changing one variable at a time is critical to making progress in this game of reasoning and observation.

Type: Lesson Plan

This PBS/NOVA lesson combines a discussion of the Nature of Science using a renowned Cancer researcher (and supported by the profiles of several other renowned scientists in the activities) to study concepts of creativity and tentativeness in the Nature of Science with a study of the biological characteristics of cells in disease (cancer).

Type: Lesson Plan

Each team has an envelope containing a series of bank checks. A few are removed at a time, and the team attempts to construct a plausible scenario which involves those checks. With each subsequent removal of checks, appropriate revision of the scenario is done. Final scenarios are compared by the class. Class discussion is designed to show how human values and biases influence observation and interpretation, even in science. This is one of the few nature-of-science lessons which have a biological connection.

Type: Lesson Plan

"Sunburn Stamp Out" MEA gives student an everyday problem they are familiar with in which they must work as a team to develop a procedure to choose the best sunscreen product for children ages 8 to 10. Students will read an informational text and then create a ranking system for the sunscreens in order to decide which product meets the client's needs.

Model Eliciting Activities, MEAs, are open-ended, interdisciplinary problem-solving activities that are meant to reveal students’ thinking about the concepts embedded in realistic situations. Click here to learn more about MEAs and how they can transform your classroom.

Type: Lesson Plan

Practice writing different aspects of an expository essay about scientists using drones to research glaciers in Peru. This interactive tutorial is part four of a four-part series. In this final tutorial, you will learn about the elements of a body paragraph. You will also create a body paragraph with supporting evidence. Finally, you will learn about the elements of a conclusion and practice creating a “gift.” 

This tutorial is part four of a four-part series. Click below to open the other tutorials in this series.

• Drones and Glaciers: Eyes in the Sky (Part 1)
• Drones and Glaciers: Eyes in the Sky (Part 2)
• Expository Writing: Eyes in the Sky (Part 3)
• Expository Writing: Eyes in the Sky (Part 4)

Type: Original Student Tutorial

Learn how to write an introduction for an expository essay in this interactive tutorial. This tutorial is the third part of a four-part series. In previous tutorials in this series, students analyzed an informational text and video about scientists using drones to explore glaciers in Peru. Students also determined the central idea and important details of the text and wrote an effective summary. In part three, you'll learn how to write an introduction for an expository essay about the scientists' research. 

This tutorial is part three of a four-part series. Click below to open the other tutorials in this series.

• Drones and Glaciers: Eyes in the Sky (Part 1)
• Drones and Glaciers: Eyes in the Sky (Part 2)
• Expository Writing: Eyes in the Sky (Part 3)
• Expository Writing: Eyes in the Sky (Part 4)

Type: Original Student Tutorial

Learn how to identify the central idea and important details of a text, as well as how to write an effective summary in this interactive tutorial. This tutorial is the second tutorial in a four-part series that examines how scientists are using drones to explore glaciers in Peru. 

This tutorial is part two of a four-part series. Click below to open the other tutorials in this series.

• Drones and Glaciers: Eyes in the Sky (Part 1)
• Drones and Glaciers: Eyes in the Sky (Part 2)
• Expository Writing: Eyes in the Sky (Part 3)
• Expository Writing: Eyes in the Sky (Part 4)

Type: Original Student Tutorial

Learn about how researchers are using drones, also called unmanned aerial vehicles or UAVs, to study glaciers in Peru. In this interactive tutorial, you will practice citing text evidence when answering questions about a text.

This tutorial is part one of a four-part series. Click below to open the other tutorials in this series.

• Drones and Glaciers: Eyes in the Sky (Part 1)
• Drones and Glaciers: Eyes in the Sky (Part 2)
• Expository Writing: Eyes in the Sky (Part 3)
• Expository Writing: Eyes in the Sky (Part 4)

Type: Original Student Tutorial

NOAA Scientist, Doug Devries talks about fish survey techniques and technologies.

Download the CPALMS Perspectives video student note taking guide.

Type: Perspectives Video: Expert

This researcher explains common methods behind randomized studies in the social sciences, specifically in education.

Type: Perspectives Video: Professional/Enthusiast

What could be better than having class on the beach and conducting actual research to boot? See how this marine science teacher transforms his students into scientists.

Download the CPALMS Perspectives video student note taking guide.

Type: Perspectives Video: Teaching Idea

Students conduct and observe a chemical reaction in a sealable plastic bag. Students then devise and conduct their own experiments to determine the identity of two unknown substances used in the reaction.

Type: Teaching Idea

This informational text resource is designed to support reading in the content area. It informs readers of how cutting edge nanotechnology is being combined with supercomputing and drug production. The new process it describes uses unique algorithms to search for DNA sequences that will self-assemble molecules tailored to locate, attach, and kill cancer cells. The passage also is a good example of how public agencies can support private-sector entities through various grants.

Type: Text Resource

This informational text resource is designed to support reading in the content area. The text describes an experiment that helps to confirm that larger brain size could indicate higher intelligence within carnivorous mammals. The experiment involved 140 animals and each was given the same task of retrieving food from a locked box within 30 minutes. The results of the test show that having a larger brain really does improve an animal’s ability to solve a problem it has never encountered before.

Type: Text Resource

This informational text resource is designed to support reading in the content area. The text explains how extreme cooling of an ancient pigment comprised of metallic compounds, as well as exposure to strong magnetic fields, converts the matter into a state called a Bose-Einstein condensate. In this state, the behavior of electrons within the pigment's atoms shifts and they form a single magnetic three dimensional structure. When the condensate is cooled even further in this case, the magnetic structure loses a dimension.

Type: Text Resource

This informational text resource is designed to support reading in the content area. This text describes new and creative technologies that are being used in climate research to study high-altitude glaciers and map how they are changing. The text describes the ways in which the use of drones with time-lapse thermal camera systems are being used to gather data over the Peruvian Andes more effectively than satellites or planes. The text also describes some of the researchers' early findings based on the data they have gathered through the use of these drones.

Type: Text Resource

This informational text resource is intended to support reading in the content area. The pigments in the feathers of bird specimens have been traditionally hard to analyze because it required destroying the feathers. Now, scientists have come up with a new, non-destructive way to explore the complex chemistry of bird feather pigments, using lasers and Raman spectroscopy.

Type: Text Resource

This informational text resource is intended to support reading in the content area. Research out of Scripps Research Institute's Florida campus illustrates how studying simple processes, such as DNA replication, can lead to highly beneficial medical advances: in this case, a possible cure for adult-onset muscular dystrophy. The article also shows how basic research has led to some familiar medical applications.

Type: Text Resource

This informational text resource is intended to support reading in the content area. Scientists have been making breakthroughs in immunotherapy: the use of infectious pathogens as a method for treating cancer. The infections heighten the response of the immune system and eradicate the cancer in the process.

Type: Text Resource

This informational text is intended to support reading in the content area. The article describes the history of the study of antimatter in language that is easier to understand than most technical texts.

Type: Text Resource

The article explains how some famous scientific discoveries that happened "by accident" more accurately resulted from scientific habits of mind, which allowed researchers to take full advantage of these serendipitous moments.

Type: Text Resource

The insight, innovation, and persistence of James Watson, Rosalind Franklin, Francis Crick, and Maurice Wilkins led to a detailed understanding of the structure of DNA, the stuff that genes are made of. This discovery brought together information from many disciplines and many researchers to answer one of the most fundamental questions in life science: How do living things pass on traits to their offspring?

Type: Text Resource

Ocean explorer Robert Ballard gives a TED Talk relating to the mysteries of the ocean, and the importance of its continued exploration.

Type: Video/Audio/Animation

Students use software to create evolutionary trees by comparing and contrasting physical traits.

This activity demonstrates the complexity of creating evolutionary trees when multiple traits are being analyzed. The use of the software simplifies the analysis without compromising the learning objectives.

Type: Virtual Manipulative