LAFS.68.WHST.3.9Archived Standard

In this resource, students will explore a poem by T. S. Eliot and, after close reading experiences, use it as a source of inspiration for creating original movement sequences. The elements of dance are manipulated as students explore various ways to create movement that reflects specific characters, behaviors, and themes. The integration of dance, reading, and writing provides multiple modes of learning, which helps students apply deeper meaning to new information.

Type: Lesson Plan

Middle school theatre students will explore cultural, social, and political influences that have shaped theater spaces over time.

Type: Lesson Plan

In this lesson, students will analyze an informational text intended to support reading in the content area. Cell biologist, Yoshinori Ohsumi, won the Nobel Prize for medicine for his research of how cells recycle unused materials in order to maintain homeostasis. The text describes his research and contains statements from other scientists supporting Ohsumi as the right choice for the award. This lesson includes a note-taking guide, text-dependent questions, a writing prompt, answer keys and a writing rubric.

Type: Lesson Plan

In this lesson, students will analyze an intended to support reading in the content area. The article explains how climate change is reducing the amount of sea ice in the Arctic Ocean. Within this sea ice is found algae that forms the base of Arctic food webs. As the sea ice goes, so does the algae, which in turn could affect the entire Arctic ecosystem. This lesson includes a note-taking guide, text-dependent questions, a writing prompt, answer keys, and a writing rubric.

Type: Lesson Plan

In this lesson, students will analyze an informational text designed to support reading in the content area. The article introduces readers to a new threat to giant panda survival: horses. The article explains how both species are competing for the limited bamboo supply in the Wolong Nature Reserve. This lesson includes a note-taking guide, text-dependent questions, a writing prompt, answer keys, and a writing rubric.

Type: Lesson Plan

In this lesson, students will analyze an informational text intended to support reading in the content area. The article describes one common virus that takes a sneaky route to success. It doesn't kill its leafy hosts, instead, it makes infected plants smell more attractive to bees. This ensures the virus will have a new generation of the plants to host it in the future. This lesson includes a note-taking guide, text-dependent questions, a writing prompt, answer keys, and a rubric.

Type: Lesson Plan

In this lesson, students will analyze an article that explains how bees have made an evolutionary adaptation of shorter tongues due to their flower food source moving up a mountain as a result of climate change. This lesson is designed to support reading in the content area. This lesson includes two note-taking guides, text-dependent questions, a writing prompt, and sample answer keys.

Type: Lesson Plan

In this lesson, students will analyze an informational text intended to support reading in the content area. This article describes new research suggesting urban life creates evolutionary changes in plants and animals. Examples of changes to an urban growing plant (the white clover) and a Leapin' Lizard are described as they evolve to suit their new environment. This lesson includes a note-taking guide, text-dependent questions, a writing prompt, answer keys, and a writing rubric.

Type: Lesson Plan

In this lesson, students will analyze an article that introduces readers to the importance and role of pollinators, factors contributing to their current decline, and easy steps that can be taken to help pollinators. This lesson is designed to support reading in the content area. This lesson includes a note-taking guide, text-dependent questions, a writing prompt, answer keys, and a writing rubric.

Type: Lesson Plan

In this lesson, students will analyze an intended to support reading in the content area. The article showcases the recent discovery of a planet orbiting our nearest star that may have the necessary ingredients to harbor life. The possibly Earth-like planet is 4 light years away, however. How might we explore it in greater detail? 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

In this lesson, students will analyze an informational text that shows how a seemingly harmless invasive species of jumping worm may cause much more destruction than once thought. The Asian jumping worm eats the debris on the forest floor at a rate that out-competes the native worms so much so that it is causing a number of problems, including forest re-growth. This lesson plan is designed to support reading in the content area. It includes a note-taking guide, text-dependent questions, a writing prompt, answer keys, and a writing rubric.

Type: Lesson Plan

In this lesson, students will analyze an informational text that describes the spread of the Zika virus through the Americas and its arrival in the United States. The text describes how the virus is carried by specific species of mosquitoes that are common in Florida and other warmer areas of the United States. An added concern with Zika is the link to microcephaly, a neurological disorder affecting fetuses and infants from infected mothers. The text also describes other viruses in the larger group that Zika belongs to and how these viruses affect the human body. This lesson is designed to support reading in the content area. The lesson plan includes a reading 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 Model Eliciting Activity (MEA), students will understand how global patterns affect the temperature of an area by studying the features of an application's virtual creatures called the "Pokemontures." These creatures have the ability to match the temperature of their environment. As students study the Pokemontures' features and calculate their approximate temperature, they will apply concepts linked to the patterns that affect temperature. Students will also review heat transfers and sea/land breezes with the use of this MEA.

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. MEAs resemble engineering problems and encourage students to create solutions in the form of mathematical and scientific models. Students work in teams to apply their knowledge of science and mathematics to solve an open-ended problem, while considering constraints and tradeoffs. Students integrate their ELA skills into MEAs as they are asked to clearly document their thought process. MEAs follow a problem-based, student centered approach to learning, where students are encouraged to grapple with the problem while the teacher acts as a facilitator. To learn more about MEA’s visit: https://www.cpalms.org/cpalms/mea.aspx

Type: Lesson Plan

In this lesson, students will analyze an informational text that explains the importance of examining moons in our solar system for signs of life. The text provides evidence on several moons of Saturn and Jupiter and explains how these moons might be good candidates for potentially harboring life, in part due to the presence of water. This lesson is designed to support reading in the content area. The lesson plan includes a graphic organizer, text-dependent questions, a writing prompt, answer keys, and a writing rubric. Numerous options to extend the lesson are also included.

Type: Lesson Plan

In this lesson, students will analyze an informational text that addresses what causes lightning and thunder. The text also outlines ways to stay safe during a lightning storm. This informational text is designed to support reading in the content area. The lesson plan includes a note-taking guide, text-dependent questions, a writing prompt, answer keys, and a writing rubric.

Type: Lesson Plan

Oil is a natural resource of vital importance to nations around the world. In this lesson, students will read a short informational text that outlines the benefits and burdens of responsible use of oil, including what needs to be considered when exploring and drilling, when using hydraulic fracturing, and when transporting oil. The article also briefly discusses actions the U.S. took after several major oil spills to help better protect the environment in the future. This lesson is designed to support reading in the content area. The lesson plan includes a note-taking guide, text-dependent questions, a writing prompt, and sample answer keys.

Type: Lesson Plan

In this lesson, students will analyze an informational text intended to support reading in the content area. The article begins by defining the jet stream and then describes how the Earth's rotation and axis affect the movement of wind bands around the earth. Interactions from variables such as the locations of high and low pressure systems, warm and cold air, and seasonal changes are also discussed. 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 analyze an informational text that describes the physics of roller coasters. This informational text is designed to support reading in the content area. The article was written to answer the question, "Why don't I fall out when a roller coaster goes upside down?" The article is an interesting combination of scientific information about physics of roller coasters along with some fun facts. The lesson plan includes text-dependent questions, a writing prompt, answer keys, and a writing rubric.

Type: Lesson Plan

In this lesson, students will analyze an informational text that explains how ranchers in Australia are using satellite data to more effectively manage their land. The text also describes how NASA's satellite technology is used by farmers in other parts of the world, providing them with data to help them track changes to their land in near real-time and over time. This lesson is designed to support reading in the content area. This lesson includes a note-taking guide, text-dependent questions and a writing prompt, sample answer keys, and a writing rubric.

Type: Lesson Plan

The lemurs of Madagascar are an interesting species that fully demonstrate the theory of evolution. By learning about these lemurs, students revisit geologic events of Earth, the fossil record, and evolution. Students are also exposed to various types of lemurs and their environments. Using this knowledge as a spring board, students will research one type of lemur and explain how it evolved, how it was affected by natural selection, how it relates to the fossil record, and what would happen if their lemur didn't adapt.

Type: Lesson Plan

While working in groups, students will be provided various materials to design models that illustrate the refraction, reflection, and absorption of light.

Type: Lesson Plan

Whales had legs?! What?!!! Use this well researched and easily understood set of resources to explore the evidence for evolution in a way that is both non-threatening and engaging. Use a combination of article excerpts and videos, along with other activities, to show evidence for the clear progression of whales from land dwellers to sea masters.
This is best used, in totality, as the opener for your evolution unit. The resources provided may also support your current practices as well.

Type: Lesson Plan

In this lesson, students will analyze the challenges faced by the Lewis and Clark Expedition, also known as the Corps of Discovery Expedition, and the effect the journey had on American history and Native American cultures.

Type: Lesson Plan

This lesson is intended to help students identify and discuss the effects of the American Civil War, with an emphasis on helping students summarize the 13^th, 14^th, and 15^th Amendments, examine John Wilkes Booth's assassination of President Lincoln, and understand the terms reconstruction and reunification.

Type: Lesson Plan

Students will learn how exercise is helping astronauts decrease bone and muscle loss during extended stays in micro-gravity. They will be asked to design an exercise program that utilizes both aerobic and muscle-building workouts while using the 3 exercise machines currently in use on the International Space Station. Then, the students will learn that current research suggests that more intense, short bursts of exercise may be more effective at decreasing bone and muscle loss, and they will be asked to redesign their workout prescription accordingly.

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

Students will learn how NASA's scientists are exploring the possibility of 3D printing food in space. The students will evaluate various sources of protein, taking into consideration the nutritional quality of each, along with the cost to produce them, and finally their impact on the environment.

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. MEAs resemble engineering problems and encourage students to create solutions in the form of mathematical and scientific models. Students work in teams to apply their knowledge of science and mathematics to solve an open-ended problem, while considering constraints and tradeoffs. Students integrate their ELA skills into MEAs as they are asked to clearly document their thought process. MEAs follow a problem-based, student centered approach to learning, where students are encouraged to grapple with the problem while the teacher acts as a facilitator. To learn more about MEA’s visit: https://www.cpalms.org/cpalms/mea.aspx

Type: Lesson Plan

In this MEA, students will try to decide which magnet program they would choose for a high school.

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

In this MEA, students will examine the diets of a group of animals being kept in captivity at a local zoo. Something in the diets is causing some of the animals to become ill, while other animals remain completely healthy. Students will analyze the data to determine what is making the animals sick. Additionally, students will explore the idea of diet as a limiting factor.

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

In this MEA, students will analyze data to determine which type of wave in a lab setting is best suited to power a toy car. Then students will analyze a set of data using data from going outside and using electromagnetic waves from the sun.

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

In this lesson, students will learn about seven of Egypt's most famous pharaohs. They will discuss leadership styles and draw conclusions about the success of each of these pharaohs. After learning about the personality and life of each pharaoh, students will break into groups to create in-depth projects about one of these seven pharaohs and will teach others in the class about this leader.

Type: Lesson Plan

This lesson requires students to use mathematical data and logic/reasoning to place vendors into retail spaces in a shopping plaza. Students will first rank five vendor types on their profitability (based on average sales and average overhead/upkeep costs), then place the vendor types into the 11-13 retail spaces. They are also required to find the area of each space and calculate the total leasing charges. The plans for the plaza are given on a coordinate plane, so students will need to find the lengths of horizontal and vertical line segments (using the coordinates of the endpoints) to calculate the areas of the rectangular and composite spaces.

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

The electromagnetic spectrum is everywhere and provides energy to us every day. Although we may not see it with the natural eye, we can see it with technology. The electromagnetic spectrum affects our lives in everything we do. Students get to study the effect of the spectrum on their technology and their interests in space, medicine, music, videos, the human body, and handheld mobile computer technology that is so important in their world.

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

In this lesson, students will determine the definition of Jet Stream. Students will view four videos that show how changes in the jet stream impacted weather in US History. This lesson is not intended as an initial introduction to these standards, but an engaging way to explore the concepts.

Type: Lesson Plan

This is a 7th grade Genetics lesson, primarily on genes, alleles and chromosomes. This lesson will teach dominant and recessive genes.

Type: Lesson Plan

In this lesson, students will design two outdoor gardens, 1) a raised garden bed and 2) a ground level garden (traditional). Students will, with help of the teacher, till the ground with removal of ground cover, build border for garden, add soil, attach poles with string to create a life size graph all so they can grow tomatoes and plot the data easily in their survival journals.This is Part 2 of a 4-Part Project on Survival.

Type: Lesson Plan

This lesson is intended as part 2 of a 4 part lesson series. It is a PowerPoint that covers Biomes of the World, including their characteristics and different producers and consumers. It can be used as a stand alone lesson as well.

Type: Lesson Plan

In this lesson, students will research NASA spinoffs. The students will organize their research by developing a report which will include highlights of the positive impact the spinoffs have had on society.

Type: Lesson Plan

This lesson is designed for 7th grade students and is best suited for advanced students. It can be used (with modifications) in the general education classroom for 7th grade or in an advanced 6th grade classroom. In this MEA, students select jars for candles based on a variety of factors and then design boxes to contain the jars.

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

This is lesson five of a five-part unit on the Six Essential Elements of Geography. Students will conduct a short research project and select textual evidence and images from their research as they apply the 6 Essential Elements to a city as a framework for understanding it and the people who live there. They will synthesize their research into a poster or PowerPoint and present their work to the class.

Type: Lesson Plan

In this lesson, students will analyze an informational text, a simulation and a video intended to support reading in the content area. The article addresses the use of computer models to predict that the Earth's tectonic plates will cease to move in the future. The evidence provided by these resources will be used to write an argument supporting the theory of plate tectonics. This lesson includes a note-taking guide, text-dependent questions, a writing prompt, answer keys, and a writing rubric.

Type: Lesson Plan

Click "View Site" to open a full-screen version.

By the end of this module, teachers should be able to:

• Label the College and Career Readiness, also known as CCR, anchor standards for Writing
• Explain the structure and organization of the grade-specific Writing standards for Literacy in History/Social Studies, Science and Technical Subjects
• Use the grade-specific Writing standards to identify what students should know and be able to do

This is Module 2 of 4 in the series, "Literacy across the Content Areas: Reading and Writing to Build Content Knowledge."

Type: Professional Development

Click "View Site" to open a full-screen version.

By the end of this module, teachers should be able to:

• Define text-dependent questions
• Frame and create text-dependent questions
• Design a text-dependent question that could be used as a writing prompt
• Differentiate questions that use basic or lower-order thinking skills from those that require more abstract or higher-order thinking skills

This is Module 4 of 4 in the series, "Literacy across the Content Areas: Reading and Writing to Build Content Knowledge."

Type: Professional Development

This text is intended to support reading in the content area. The text describes future possible outcomes for the tectonic plates and the movement of the Earth’s crust. Using computer models, the article first discusses when crustal plate movement is thought to have begun. Then, it provides the reader with an account of some of the ways the Earth has changed due to the movement of plate tectonics. It then continues to use computer models to produce a simulation to show that these plate movements may stop millions of years from now.

Type: Text Resource

This informational text resource is intended to support reading in the content area. The article highlights the work of cell biologist, Yoshinori Ohsumi, who won the Nobel Prize for physiology for his research on how cells recycle unused materials in order to maintain homeostasis. Ohsumi studied what the cell did if it started to "starve." He noticed how the cell would start "eating" some of the parts it didn't really need in order to survive. This process is called autophagy. Scientists hope that Ohsumi’s discovery will help find a cure for diseases like Alzheimer's, which is caused by cell trash buildup in the brain.

Type: Text Resource

This informational text resource is intended to support reading in the content area. Species that live in the open ocean may suffer as sea ice disappears. As sea ice disappears, the algae embedded and living in the sea ice will be reduced. This article explores the evidence collected to show the role of algae in driving the Arctic food web.

Type: Text Resource

This informational text (intended to support reading in the content area) describes how one common virus takes a sneaky route to success. It doesn’t kill its leafy hosts, instead, it makes infected plants smell more attractive to bees. This ensures the virus will have a new generation of the plants to host it in the future.

Type: Text Resource

This informational text resource is intended to support reading in the content area. In parts of China, pandas are threatened by horses. The pandas have a specific diet - bamboo that grows on the gently sloping areas far from human populations. But some farmers allow their horses to roam free and graze upon bamboo, taking away the only source of food for pandas.

Type: Text Resource

This informational text resource supports reading in the content area. The text explains how bees have made an evolutionary adaptation of shorter tongues. This adaptation is due to their mutualistic relationship with their flower food source moving up a mountain as a result of climate change.

Type: Text Resource

This informational text resource is designed to support reading in the content area. The article introduces the reader to the importance and role of pollinators, factors contributing to their decline, and easy steps that can be taken to help pollinators.

Type: Text Resource

This informational text resource is intended to support reading in the content area. It describes new research suggesting urban life creates evolutionary changes in plants and animals. Examples of changes to an urban growing plant (the white clover) and a Leapin' Lizard are presented as they evolve to suit their new environment.

Type: Text Resource

This resource is designed to support reading in the content area. The text describes the emergence of the Zika virus and the threat it may pose to the United States. Information is provided about how the virus is transmitted, and the connection between Zika and microcephaly is explored.

Type: Text Resource

This resource is intended to support reading in the content area. The text includes information on a newly discovered planet that orbits the nearest star to our sun. Proxima b, while close, is actually quite far—more than four light years from our sun—yet it shows potential for life, close enough for the planet to receive radiation and energy from its star. The article also discusses the possibility of sending robotic missions there using new technology that could perhaps reach the planet in twenty years.

Type: Text Resource

This resource is designed to support reading in the content area. The article describes new research on the ways Asian jumping worms are affecting American forests. Findings show they are much more of a problem than initially feared. Because Asian jumping worms have bigger appetites than other earthworms found in the U.S., they are much more successful at eating the debris on the forest floor. This exposes vulnerable areas that may bring more diseases and invasive plants. It can also prevent delicate seedlings from taking root.

Type: Text Resource

This informational text resource is designed to support reading in the content area. This article from NASA addresses how our solar system’s moons may be a more interesting study than some of the planets because they show a possibility of harboring life due to their composition, atmospheres and presence of water.

Type: Text Resource

This informational text resource is designed to support reading in the content area. The text describes what causes lightning and examines the science behind cloud-to-ground lightning strikes. It also discusses what causes thunder and explains why we see the lightning before we hear the thunder. The last section of the text provides important rules about lightning safety and lists ways to stay safe during a lightning storm.

Type: Text Resource

This informational text resource is designed to support reading in the content area. Oil is a natural resource of vital importance to nations around the world. This article outlines the benefits and burdens of responsible use of oil, including what needs to be considered when exploring and drilling, when using hydraulic fracturing, and when transporting oil. The article also briefly discusses actions the U.S. took after several major oil spills to help better protect the environment in the future.

Type: Text Resource

This informational text resource is designed to support reading in the content area. The purpose of the article is to define and describe the jet stream. It explains how the earth's rotation and axis affect the movement of wind bands around the Earth. Interactions from variables such as locations of high and low pressure systems, warm and cold air, and seasonal changes are also discussed.

Type: Text Resource

This informational text resource is designed to support reading in the content area. This article describes some of the organelles in a cell and explains their functions. It takes students "inside" the cell, by "shrinking" the students and giving the students perspective to the size of these organelles by comparing them to familiar objects.

Type: Text Resource

This informational text resource is designed to support reading in the content area. The article is provided by NASA and discusses how farmers in Australia are able to use digital data provided by U.S. satellites. These farmers are able to use this satellite data to monitor the condition of their land, and enables them to better manage their farms. The author also provides additional examples of how this data is used by countries throughout the world. The article helps demonstrate how space technology positively impacts the world. The text also discusses the impact of human activities on the environment.

Type: Text Resource

This informational text resource is designed to support reading in the content area. This short article was written to answer the question, "Why don't I fall out when a roller coaster goes upside down?" The answer to the question results in an interesting article that combines scientific information about the physics of roller coasters, along with some fun facts and photographs.

Type: Text Resource

This informational text resource is intended to support reading in the content area. Prey species exhibit a variety of behaviors to avoid getting eaten by predators. For example, some animals may run away, find shelter, or move to a safer area if they sense predators are near. This article describes the responses of two prey species in detail: tree frog tadpoles that hatch early when predators are close by, and elk that avoid eating in dangerous areas when wolves are present. Their responses to fear can affect not only the prey species, but the entire food web.

Type: Text Resource

This informational text resource is intended to support reading in the content area. The climate on Earth is changing and there are individuals and companies positioning themselves to make money on these changes. For example, oil companies are acquiring leases in previously frozen regions, arid farmland is being purchased because the land may be better in the future for growing crops than it is now as a result of climate changes.

Type: Text Resource

This informational text resource is intended to support reading in the content area. Survival for Magellanic penguins has always been a challenge due to predation and starvation, but the influence of climate change is now making survival even more difficult for them. The study cited in this article is one of the first to show a direct impact of climate change on the population of seabirds. Increased storm activity and warmer temperatures are two factors impacting penguin populations in Argentina.

Type: Text Resource

This informational text resource is intended to support reading in the content area. Scientists from around the world and from many cultures visit Antarctica to conduct research on questions that matter to all mankind. There are a number of important lessons that can be learned through research in Antarctica, such as past carbon dioxide levels, ozone depletion, impacts of meteorites, air pollution, and sea level change.

Type: Text Resource

This informational text resource is intended to support reading in the content area. The article describes the cause and effect of farming and agriculture on the groundwater reserve. The article explains the water cycle and how scientists used two satellites named Tom and Jerry to track the changes in the amount of groundwater on earth. The article also details how gravity played a role in helping satellites detect the changes in water level. Finally, the article explains how farming uses the groundwater reserve stored many years ago, and how it depletes this reserve as a result.

Type: Text Resource

This informational text resource is intended to support reading in the content area.  This article describes the role of the circulatory system in the human body. The text divides this system into three main parts: the heart, blood vessels, and blood. Each component of the system is explained in detail, including its makeup, how it works, and why it is important. The text concludes by addressing some diseases of the circulatory system. 

Type: Text Resource

This article is intended to support reading in the content area. The article provides a chronological description of the development of the atomic theory. Beginning with debates by Greek philosophers in the sixth century B.C., the various beliefs about atoms are explained. For around 2000 years, the subject lay dormant, until John Dalton developed his atomic theory in the 1800s. Delving into tests of Dalton's theory, the author explains how scientists, over time, developed what we now know as the modern day atomic theory.

Type: Text Resource

This informational text resource is intended to support reading in the content area. This article explains the science behind why and how fire burns. The article describes why fire is not considered matter and what is required for fire to burn, as well as how the atoms rearrange themselves during the combustion process. 

Type: Text Resource

This informational text supports reading in the content area. This text discusses the findings of studying mite speed and mite's affinity for high temperatures. The article explores how the data could be used in the field of biomechanics.

Type: Text Resource

This informational text resource is intended to support reading in the content area.   This article recounts the Great Alaskan Earthquake of 1964, a magnitude 9.2 event and the second strongest earthquake ever recorded. It also discuss how the earthquake helped shape the study of plate tectonics.  

Type: Text Resource

This informational text resource is intended to support reading in the content area. The article describes two studies that show how the decline of large sharks has adverse effects on other organisms in their food web. The article explains that without apex predators like sharks, other large fish and rays tend to thrive and prey too heavily on shellfish populations.

Type: Text Resource

This informational text resource is intended to support reading in the content area.  This article describes the respiratory system, starting with the major functions. The article describes interactions that take place between the respiratory and other systems of the human body, especially the circulatory system. The article describes the respiratory tract and the many organs that complete it. Finally, the article gives an overview of the breathing process and concludes with explanations of various diseases and disorders that affect this system. 

Type: Text Resource

This informational text resource is intended to support reading in the content area.  This article describes several fascinating examples of rapid evolution by natural selection. It explains research on three organisms, cichlids, crickets and sea urchins, that demonstrates how these creatures have quickly adapted to their changing environments. This is a very useful article for students beginning to explore the concepts of natural selection, evolution, and extinction.    

Type: Text Resource

This informational text resource is intended to support reading in the content area. Scientists may have found a star created from the same nebula that produced our sun. The spectrograph composition data, the motion of the star through the Milky Way, and its age all suggest that it is a "sibling" to our Sun.

Type: Text Resource

This informational text resource is intended to support reading in the content area. This text examines how humans and all things around us are made of elements created in stars. The article references fusion, the powerful collision of enormous stars, and the intense explosion of supernovas. All of this is tied to the creation of heavier elements that hurtle through space, to be reassembled as distant solar systems.

Type: Text Resource

This informational text resource is intended to support reading in the content area. Although scientists haven't determined a specific reason why one baseball player's hitting streak improves his whole team's performance, they have observed a very real mathematical pattern. There may be many reasons for the phenomenon, but no one has found them out yet.

Type: Text Resource

This informational text resource is intended to support reading in the content area.  This article gives an account of the events before, during, and after Hurricane Andrew’s assault on South Florida in August of 1992. The author describes why South Florida was unprepared for what became a category 5 hurricane, why certain areas suffered such extensive damage, and improvements that have been made in prediction and preparedness for future storms. 

Type: Text Resource

This informational text resource is intended to support reading in the content area. This article describes some of the research on fire being done by a variety of scientists. This research is leading to a greater understanding of how things burn and the effects of fire on humans and the environment. For example, fire research can be applied to maintaining ecosystems, human health and safety, and controlling or preventing large wildfires.

Type: Text Resource

This informational text resource is intended to support reading in the content area. This article describes an exciting series of experiments aimed at determining whether complex life could exist in the extremely harsh Antarctic environment of Lake Vostok. Researchers found some evidence of complex life from DNA analysis, but confirming such extraordinary findings would require substantial additional data and repeated confirmation. The text offers a great overview of the complex nature of the scientific process and what it takes to truly confirm an experimental finding.

Type: Text Resource

This informational text resource is intended to support reading in the content area. Using fossilized trees, scientists can investigate how the Earth has changed over millions of years. Tree fossils in the Arctic show that this region was once considerably warmer and was home to large forests teeming with life. Chemical analyses can also show what the soil and water of these regions looked like millions of years ago. This information can help predict what the world might look like as the Earth warms once again.

Type: Text Resource

This informational text resource is intended to support reading in the content area. This article describes a theory explaining why the outer layer of the sun, the corona, is much hotter than some inner layers. The theory states that magnetic waves transport heat energy from the sun's center to its outer layers. They may be "shuttled" by gas jets that originate deeper within the sun.

Type: Text Resource

This informational text resource is intended to support reading in the content area. Scientists have been observing a supernova that first appeared in 1987. Specifically, they have measured a large amount of star dust that formed as a result of the supernova. This dust is thought to be the material that forms new stars and studying it may tell scientists something about how stars formed early in the history of the universe.

Type: Text Resource

This informational text resource is intended to support reading in the content area. When electric charges build up on objects, static electricity can occur. Static electricity can be particularly harmful to electronic devices if there are small static discharges. Researchers have found that treating electronics with vitamin E can help reduce static electricity by removing free radicals that are attached to the charges.

Type: Text Resource

This informational text resource is intended to support reading in the content area. A Pew Research Center survey indicates that cell phone ownership is at an all-time high, with 91% of Americans owning a cell phone in 2013. Statistical tests show that cell phone usage is significantly higher in men, college-educated people, the wealthy, and those living in urban/suburban areas. This rise in ownership is associated with a variety of positive impacts of cell phone use, but previous research shows there are several negative impressions and impacts of cell phones as well.

Type: Text Resource

This informational text resource is intended to support reading in the content area. This article discusses how a drug widely used to flight influenza—Tamiflu—is contaminating bodies of water. It describes how this poses potential risks to humans and wildlife.

Type: Text Resource

This informational text resource is intended to support reading in the content area. The article is mostly a biography of Charles Darwin, including his studies and what drove him to be a biologist. The second half of the article discusses his theory of evolution by natural selection and his influences on the development of the theory. It gives a synopsis of how natural selection operates.

Type: Text Resource

This informational text resource is intended to support reading in the content area. The text describes a method for predicting the win-loss record for baseball teams based on runs scored and runs allowed, using the "Pythagorean Expectation" formula invented by Bill James. The text goes on to show the relationship of the prediction formula to the Pythagorean theorem, pointing out a very cool application of the theorem to the world of sports.

Type: Text Resource

This informational text resource is intended to support reading in the content area. It is challenging to build batteries that are small, hold a big charge, and can be recharged many times. Sulfur-based batteries represent a solution, but they are at risk of explosion because byproducts form when they recharge. Scientists think they have solved this problem by creating batteries out of titanium oxide-coated sulfur particles that allow for the storage of bad byproducts.

Type: Text Resource

This informational text resource is intended to support reading in the content area. Scientists use radiometric dating to estimate the age of objects, including fossils and geological formations. Radiometric dating methods include measuring carbon-14 and uranium/potassium isotopes. This article details how these methods can be used to date a variety of objects, including the Earth itself.

Type: Text Resource

This informational text resource is intended to support reading in the content area. In 2012, the rover Curiosity was sent on a mission to Mars in order to explore the planet for signs of life. This article describes the research required to build the rover, its flight and landing on Mars, and the objectives of its mission.

Type: Text Resource

This article is intended to support reading in the content area. The text investigates whether the number of large magnitude earthquakes has significantly increased. The article explores the challenge of trying to determine why the amount and intensity of earthquakes can vary across time. The text also briefly explores the recent rise in man-made earthquakes.

Type: Text Resource

This informational text resource is intended to support reading in the content area. Most studies of Jupiter's Great Red Spot (a storm) predict that it should have disappeared long ago, and so its continued existence puzzles scientists. A new study that considers the vertical winds within the storm is able to explain why the spot has existed for over 200 years, and could even continue for hundreds of years longer.

Type: Text Resource

This informational text resource is intended to support reading in the content area. The appendix has long been thought to be useless. However, new research suggests that the appendix actually can have a healthy function—to harbor bacteria beneficial to the immune system. This would have been vital early in humans' evolutionary history, when the chance of infection was much higher and medicine was lacking, and may still play that role for people in less developed parts of the world.

Type: Text Resource

This informational text resource is intended to support reading in the content area. Gorilla Glass on your phone? Magnetic fluid shocks in your car? With applications here on Earth, "smart" materials like these are being studied in the microgravity of space. The programmed rearrangement of particles on a molecular level enhances materials in new high-tech products.

Type: Text Resource

This informational text resource is intended to support reading in the content area. Part of the Cool Jobs series, this article features examples of STEM careers. The text highlights research into super-repellent chemicals. Teams of scientists inspired by nature are working on solving problems that would enhance society. These innovations include ultra-repellent fabric, mesh to clean up oil spills, de-fogging surfaces, and coatings that reduce drag on ships.

Type: Text Resource

This informational text resource is intended to support reading in the content area.Tiny particles of gold have been found in the leaves of trees growing high above an underground supply of it. Biogeochemical prospecting uses living organisms to locate precious metals deep beneath the surface. From termite mounds to "roo poo" from a kangaroo, biological clues point prospectors in the right direction.

Type: Text Resource

This informational text resource is intended to support reading in the content area. The article discusses how crickets on two Hawaiian islands have evolved wings that make them silent in response to parasitoid flies that locate male crickets via sound (and eat them from the inside out!). The crickets on Kauai and Oahu evolved completely different silent wing types, which is evidence that these two cricket populations evolved their silent wings independently.

Type: Text Resource

This informational text resource is intended to support reading in the content area. Scientists have developed a new type of camouflage "makeup" for soldiers that can help prevent burns from nearby explosions. They have chemically swapped out flammable materials for a new heat-resistant polymer to create a type of makeup with applications well beyond the military.

Type: Text Resource

This informational text resource is intended to support reading in the content area. Through the author's personal experience and observations made by scientists, this article describes how the study of an extinct lake's history can be used to make predictions about how warming temperatures may affect the future of current lakes. From analyses of the shoreline, soil, algal growth, and minerals coated on rocks, the article offers evidence and clues that the desert was once under water.

Type: Text Resource

This informational text resource is intended to support reading in the content area. The human evolution of bipedalism (walking upright) has resulted in a change in the morphology of the spine, feet, and other features of modern humans that are also present in fossils of our hominid ancestors. These changes have resulted in unintended consequences - body pains and injuries that our non-bipedal primate relatives do not experience.

Type: Text Resource

This informational text resource is intended to support reading in the content area. The article discusses current thinking and popular hypotheses for the function of zebra stripes. A recent study indicates that zebra stripes may protect the animals from fly bites, which are both a nuisance to the animals and a means of spreading infectious fatal diseases.

Type: Text Resource

This informational text resource is intended to support reading in the content area. Scientists used ancient bones to compare Neandertal DNA to that of modern humans from around the globe. The results are surprising: many of us are closer to Neandertals than previously thought. Once considered very unlikely, scientists now believe that humans and Neandertals may have interbred.

Type: Text Resource

This informational text resource is intended to support reading in the content area. Scientists recently linked the injection of carbon dioxide into the ground with increased numbers of earthquakes in Texas. This may have consequences for plans to store CO2 underground to slow global warming or inject it during the process of oil mining.

Type: Text Resource

This informational text resource is intended to support reading in the content area. This text highlights the controversy surrounding genetically modified foods and their labeling. The article explains GMOs and their implications for health according to science and industry.

Type: Text Resource

This informational text resource is intended to support reading in the content area. The science fair project of two junior scientists in Nigeria may hold the key to ending "morning breath." Through experimentation, the two teenage girls determined that African walnuts were able to kill bacteria that cause bad breath. Their project was presented at the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair.

Type: Text Resource

This informational text resource is intended to support reading in the content area. This informational text on acids and bases takes difficult content and explains it clearly with the aid of several simple diagrams. It explains the pH scale and how the chemists Arrhenius, Bronsted, and Lowry have contributed to our understanding of acids as donors and bases as acceptors.

Type: Text Resource

This informational text resource is intended to support reading in the content area. Carbon, an essential part of life on Earth, exists in a never-ending cycle. It is continually moving back and forth between living and non-living factors, as well as from organism to organism. Soil, with its ability to "lock up" carbon, plays a major role in the carbon cycle. Atmospheric CO2 levels are linked to climate change, so ways of keeping carbon locked in soil are of great interest to scientists.

Type: Text Resource

This informational text resource is intended to support reading in the content area. This article explores scientists' identification of the largest volcano on Earth—Tamu Massif—which is found below the surface of the Pacific Ocean. Due to its underlying geology, the volcano is mostly found below the ocean floor at the edge of two tectonic plates. It formed when magma emerged as the plates pulled apart. The article compares Tamu Massif to other giant volcanoes on Earth and on other planets.

Type: Text Resource

This informational text resource is intended to support reading in the content area. In this article, scientists explore the fossil of a dead fish whose cells were perfectly preserved from 100 million years ago. The remains led to further studies of decay and fossilization. Taphonomy, the study of what happens after plants and animals die, is discussed in detail, showing how studying fossilized animals can tell us about how they evolved.

Type: Text Resource

This informational text resource is intended to support reading in the content area. This article reveals how scientists have found a way to make a synthetic chromosome and insert it into yeast cells. Scientists discovered that this chromosome can alter or create new traits in an organism. This research could lead to creating an entirely synthetic genome, which scientists expect to accomplish in the next few years.

Type: Text Resource

This informational text resource is intended to support reading in the content area. A brown dwarf, which is essentially a failed star, has been discovered close to our solar system. The brown dwarf is the coldest and one of the smallest yet discovered. Telescopic images and data helped scientists to find and characterize the failed star.

Type: Text Resource

This informational text resource is intended to support reading in the content area. Scientific models predict that El Niño will cause fewer hurricanes in the Atlantic Ocean—but more in the Pacific Ocean—in 2014. This is because El Niño events affect water temperatures and wind shear, which affect hurricane formation. The article gives the chances of named storms forming in both the Pacific and Atlantic.    

Type: Text Resource

This informational text resource is intended to support reading in the content area. The article describes the discovery of mega-plumes of plasma within the sun. These long-lasting, larger than Earth heat elevators may be the reason the latitudes of the sun rotate at different speeds. Two different scientists have analyzed data that support this possible explanation.

Type: Text Resource

This article describes a weightless flight taken by student researchers investigating several questions all centering on zero gravity. NASA's Reduced Gravity Education Flight Program uses flights by the commercial Zero Gravity Corporation to perform weightless science.

Type: Text Resource

This informational text resource is intended to support reading in the content area. Studying dog DNA may have many applications including helping scientists to have a better understanding of canine origins and how dogs became domesticated. Understanding and locating certain genes has many breeding applications. Studying and understanding dog diseases may be able to further the study of human diseases.

Type: Text Resource

This informational text resource is intended to support reading in the content area. This article explains the types of light on the electromagnetic spectrum that our eyes cannot detect; to make them visible, scientists use telescopes to take amazing photographs. Computers turn the data into color that the human eye can see, so the colors are actually "false colors." The article includes additional links, including the Hubble Space Telescope website gallery of photographs.

Type: Text Resource

This informational text resource is intended to support reading in the content area. This article describes a study that suggests tropical animals are in danger of extinction due to climate change—more so than animals living in polar climates. This is because these species are already at their thermal tolerance limits, and further increases in temperature could greatly lower their fitness.

Type: Text Resource

This informational text resource is intended to support reading in the content area. This article reports on the "lucky streak" Florida has had in hurricane seasons since 2005 and explains why the trend cannot last forever. The author also focuses on storm surge damage and explains the new computer programs that use interactive real-time maps to predict storm surges and the need for evacuations.

Type: Text Resource

This informational text resource is intended to support reading in the content area. This article discusses how stars are classified, especially the different types of dwarf stars. It is still under debate how some star-like objects, like brown dwarfs, should be classified. The text also describes the life cycle of stars, explaining how they change in size and mass over time and eventually expand and die.

Type: Text Resource

This informational text resource is intended to support reading in the content area. This text briefly describes how astronomers have measured and quantified the apparent brightness and magnitude of stars as astrophysics has evolved over time. This article also discusses the limitations of absolute magnitude in terms of the technology tools utilized.

Type: Text Resource

This informational text resource is intended to support reading in the content area. Chinese researchers recently created a new "lightest solid," an aerogel of carbon nanotubes with a density of 0.16 mg/cm3. Unlike its aerogel predecessors, the substance has practical applications and may prove extremely helpful in cleaning up toxic oil spills.

Type: Text Resource

This informational text resource is intended to support reading in the content area. Chocolate has been known to have health benefits for hundreds of years, but why? Because of the large size of the molecules found in chocolate, the body shouldn't be able to absorb their beneficial components. A team of scientists investigated to see if bacteria in the gut are responsible for breaking down these large molecules further, enabling the human body to absorb them and take advantage of chocolate's health benefits.

Type: Text Resource

This informational text resource is intended to support reading in the content area. Evidence that supports how Earth's climate and the position of its continents have changed over time has been found in an unlikely place: Antarctica. Preserved plants and insects over 20 million years old, similar to specimens on other continents, have been discovered. These discoveries provide scientists with evidence to support the continental drift of the landmass once known as Gondwana.

Type: Text Resource

This informational text resource is intended to support reading in the content area. Russian and U.S. scientists have collaborated to create for the first time element 117: "ununseptium." The element was created inside a machine called a cyclotron when atoms of berkelium and calcium were smashed together. While the element decays quickly, the new discovery has scientists very excited, as it fills a gap in the periodic table.

Type: Text Resource

This informational text resource is intended to support reading in the content area. The article outlines the scientific mindset that led William Herschel to arrive at the discovery of infrared light, an unexpected consequence of an experiment he was conducting. More generally, the article demonstrates the scientific process, from hypothesis to observation and from inference to conclusion.

Type: Text Resource

This informational text resource is intended to support reading in the content area. The article describes how an algae species previously thought to be invasive is actually a "hidden" native species that blooms when environmental conditions change. It describes those conditions as well as the algae's ecological impact on other populations. The article concludes by connecting that human impact—climate change—is causing algae blooms to become more and more common.

Type: Text Resource

This informational text resource is intended to support reading in the content area. This article describes the history of NASA's space shuttle program as it comes to an end. It discusses the scientific advancements that have resulted from the program and the possible next steps in human space flight.

Type: Text Resource

This informational text resource is intended to support reading in the content area. The article discusses the amazing discovery of an ancient virus found frozen in the Russian permafrost after 30,000 years. The virus is huge in size and only infects amoebas. Amazingly, the virus is still infectious after remaining frozen for so long.

Type: Text Resource

This informational text resource is intended to support reading in the content area. A student in love with magic card tricks asks and answers his own math questions after pursuing a career as a mathematician in order to solve them. How many times must a deck be shuffled to achieve a truly random mix of cards? The answer lies within.

Type: Text Resource

This informational text resource is intended to support reading in the content area. The article describes how astronomers have found a new exoplanet, Kepler-186f, orbiting a distant star. Research suggests that this planet is in the habitable "Goldilocks" zone—not too close and not too far—of the red dwarf star it orbits. If the planet is in the habitable zone, it mimics the earth/sun relationship we have, and astronomers believe liquid water might be present on this planet. Water, of course, is the key to (extraterrestrial) life.

Type: Text Resource

This informational text resource is intended to support reading in the content area. The text describes a possible solution to the spread of mosquito-borne illnesses like malaria and dengue fever. Scientists have genetically modified mosquitoes to disrupt their reproductive cycle. The article ends with the concerns of the scientific community about the breeding program, while at the same time showing how several countries are already having success with use of the GM organisms.

Type: Text Resource

This informational text resource is intended to support reading in the content area. This article discusses how global warming could leave New Zealand's tuatara (a reptile species) dangerously short on females. When the temperature rises as little as one degree, far more males than females are born. One island habitat is now 75% males, with fewer, frailer females. Without intervention, the tuatara could become extinct. The article offers some possible solutions, including having the colonies relocated to cooler islands.

Type: Text Resource

This informational text resource is intended to support reading in the content area. The article explains how natural selection can lead to changes in populations. Variations in body types were observed in a species of climbing goby (a fish) in Hawaii. These variations allow differential success in avoiding predators and climbing waterfalls. Depending on conditions on different islands, individuals with certain body types are more likely to thrive because their body type makes it easier for them to survive and reproduce.

Type: Text Resource

The text’s grade band recommendation is based on a text complexity analysis of a quantitative measure, qualitative rubric, and reader and task considerations.

Type: Text Resource

This informational text resource is intended to support reading in the content area. This article focuses on how plate tectonics change the surface of Earth, and how new research is changing the way we think about geological behavior. The article goes in depth about two new ideas that are changing the way we think about the planet's layers and the processes that have shaped Earth over its long history.

Type: Text Resource

This informational text resource is intended to support reading in the content area. This interactive, online text explains how a hurricane forms, what storm surge is, when hurricane season starts and ends, how hurricanes are named, and more. It has animations of storm surge and a link to a storm tracking map. The article also includes a glossary and fantastic tables and diagrams.

Type: Text Resource

This informational text resource is intended to support reading in the content area. The text describes the science behind baseball by analyzing an actual pitch that took place in a Royals vs. Tigers game. The text describes how Newton's First Law affects the pitch and then describes how energy is transferred from ball to bat. Finally, the text explains how scientists use several methods to analyze the physics of a pitch.

Type: Text Resource

This informational text resource is intended to support reading in the content area. This short article is about how a changing environment has lead to a near extinction of tuatara (a lizard species) in New Zealand. It discusses how invasive species—in the tuatara's case, predatory mammals—can wipe out native species that are unable to adapt.

Type: Text Resource

This informational text resource is intended to support reading in the content area. This article from Universe Today describes the quantity of operational satellites and "space junk" orbiting the Earth. Those figures are broken down by the satellites' various orbits and include examples of the types of objects found in each area.

Type: Text Resource

This informational text resource is intended to support reading in the content area. Predict the future and get paid for it? This article explores the variety of disciplines that involve dreaming up new ideas for products and technology. From storing data in bacteria to tapping into the geothermal energy between tectonic plates, the article provides an overview of how futurists get "paid to dream."

Type: Text Resource

This informational text resource is intended to support reading in the content area. This article discusses how the early tyrannosaur's rise to dominance was likely delayed by the existence of a newly discovered, fiercer predator with which it competed. The new dino, Siats meekerorum, likely postponed tyrannosaur's emergence as the top predator in its ecosystem.

Type: Text Resource

This informational text resource is intended to support reading in the content area. How has bacteria evolved to be resistant to antibiotic drugs? Scientists have discovered that an ordinary kitchen item, the cutting board, can spread dangerous germs.

Type: Text Resource

This informational text resource is intended to support reading in the content area. Written by two scientists, the article explains how "hard sciences" and "soft sciences" are different. The authors list the five concepts that characterize scientifically rigorous studies and determine that, while not inferior, social sciences like economics are not truly "scientific."

Type: Text Resource

This informational text resource is intended to support reading in the content area. The article describes how technology is developing to not only recycle the water out of human urine but to pull energy from it to help power its own recycling. The text describes why this is a necessary process for extended space travel and how a similar system is already in place on the International Space Station. The text concludes that this recycling method could have several Earth-borne uses as well.

Type: Text Resource

This informational text resource is intended to support reading in the content area. The text describes a newly found parasitic bacterial protein, SAP54, which turns host plants into non-flowering "zombies" for the sole benefit of the parasites. This knowledge may enable scientists to help plants defend against these attackers.

Type: Text Resource

This informational text resource is intended to support reading in the content area. This article describes the accomplishments of the Voyager 1 spacecraft since its launch in 1977. It also explains the arguments for determining the current location of the spacecraft—possibly interstellar space—and what will happen when it begins to shut down entirely.

Type: Text Resource

This informational text resource is intended to support reading in the content area. This article discusses the reasons why some leaves change color in the fall. It contains background information on why leaves turn different colors and how red pigment is especially different, chemically, from the others.

Type: Text Resource

This informational text resource is intended to support reading in the content area. Not many people will say they like bees, but they are a very necessary part of our environment. Scientists are struggling to find an answer—and, hopefully, a solution—as to why so many bee colonies are vanishing. They believe there are several environmental factors that are killing these insects.

Type: Text Resource

This informational text resource is intended to support reading in the content area. Researchers in Australia have found kangaroos to produce more acetate in their flatulence than methane. Cows and goats produce methane-heavy flatulence twenty times more potent than carbon dioxide, adding to the greenhouse gases contributing to global warming. Scientists are trying to use this research on kangaroo farts to discover a way to alter the amount of greenhouse gases in animal flatulence worldwide.

Type: Text Resource

This informational text resource is intended to support reading in the content area. Scientists are finally able to support the hypothesis that electromagnetic radiation from human electronic equipment can confuse a bird's sense of direction; the radiation impacts the orientation necessary for birds' migration. When shielded by an aluminum screen (a Faraday cage), this interference is eliminated and birds can orient themselves properly.

Type: Text Resource

This informational text resource is intended to support reading in the content area. The article describes the effect of melting ice in the Arctic Ocean on the spreading of parasitic diseases. The author explains how grey seals and ringed seals have contracted one particular disease due to the Arctic thaw and goes on to explain how Beluga whales north of Alaska have contracted a second disease, which can be spread to humans.

Type: Text Resource

This informational text resource is intended to support reading in the content area. The text describes how scientists are attempting to use several pieces of evidence to pinpoint when a mass extinction event occurred at the end of the Permian Period. The text points to a connection between increasing volcanic eruptions, an increase of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, and their relationship to mass extinctions before alluding to the signs of how human activity could be pushing Earth towards one.

Type: Text Resource

This informational text resource is intended to support reading in the content area. This is a clearly organized high-interest informative text explaining how astronauts use the bathroom, sleep and eat in zero gravity. The web version has a video, library of photos, and many other related sites that students can independently investigate.

Type: Text Resource

This informational text resource is intended to support reading in the content area. Fossil hunters discovered a new, bird-like dinosaur and they think it looked ridiculous! Paleontologists have found pieces of this dinosaur before, but couldn't put the pieces together until they found these specific bones in North Dakota. They pieced together information from other fossils and finally discovered this silly looking creature.

Type: Text Resource

This informational text resource is intended to support reading in the content area. The article describes how scientists have found that Native Americans have ancestral roots in Asia using DNA evidence from a 12,600 year old toddler skeleton from the Clovis culture in Montana.

Type: Text Resource

This informational text resource is intended to support reading in the content area. Stem cell research findings are discussed with examples of how biotechnology is impacting society. The article explains the different types of stem cells and highlights research on stem cells to cure diseases and help increase quality of life. Ethical questions are addressed using a balanced approach.

Type: Text Resource

This informational text resource is intended to support reading in the content area. This NBC News science article describes the success of a young inventor's polymer and salt filled sandbags, designed for more efficient flood protection and deployment.

Type: Text Resource

This informational text resource is intended to support reading in the content area. The National Geographic Kids article discusses the environmental problems caused by disposable water bottle use.

Type: Text Resource

Images recently discovered by the Herschel telescope reveal the formation of previously unseen high-mass star formations. These new findings help us learn more about our own galaxy as well as star formation, and will lead to a better understanding of larger distant galaxies.

Type: Text Resource

Technological advances and partnerships with technology companies help with research on biodiversity. Satellites – used in conjunction with GPS-enabled tablets loaded with imaging software – can assist scientists with uncovering, locating, and collecting data on species that would normally not have been discovered.

Type: Text Resource

This informational text resource is intended to support reading in the content area. The text explains the continuous movement of water between the Earth's surfaces and the atmosphere.

Type: Text Resource

This informational text resource is intended to support reading in the content area. The text explains the three ways heat passes into and through the atmosphere by relating examples from everyday life to atmospheric forms of heat transfer.

Type: Text Resource

This informational text resource is intended to support reading in the content area. The discovery of a comet-like asteroid baffles scientists and poses questions about its formation, make-up, and changing appearance.

Type: Text Resource

This informational text resource is intended to support reading in the content area. The article describes the extreme population growth and range expansion of wild pigs, as well as how this invasive animal is damaging local ecosystems.

Type: Text Resource

This informational text resource supports reading in the content area. The text explains how our bones do much more than just hold us up and keep us moving—they play many other important roles in the body.

Type: Text Resource

This informational text resource is intended to support reading in the content area. The text explains how large earthquakes are naturally occurring events and compares them to the fictional "megaquakes" portrayed in movies. It also dispels a number of myths about earthquakes.

Type: Text Resource

This informational text resource is intended to support reading in the content area. The text discusses the different benefits that wetlands bring to the environment, their potential resilience to sea level rise, and the different ways in which human-caused climate change is affecting their potential resiliency.

Type: Text Resource

This informational text is intended to support reading in the content area. The text covers many topics about weather and climate including the water cycle, seasons, greenhouse effect, and climate change.

Type: Text Resource

This informational text resource is intended to support reading in the content area. The text describes NASA's "Kepler" mission, which uses a photometer telescope to examine our region of the Milky Way Galaxy for habitable planets similar to Earth.

Type: Text Resource

This informational text is intended to support reading in the content area. This news article describes an astronomer's theory that a particularly strong series of tides contributed to an abundance of icebergs and may have resulted in the sinking of the Titanic. It is complete with the evidence behind the theory and a contrary opinion from another astronomer.

Type: Text Resource

This informational text resource is intended to support reading in the content area. This is an informational text that helps readers know how to better communicate non-verbally in a business environment.

Type: Text Resource

This informational text resource is intended to support reading in the content area. This article discusses deforestation, its causes, and its effects on ecosystems.

Type: Text Resource

This informational text resource is intended to support reading in the content area. The text describes the discovery of a new species of human, nicknamed "hobbits," believed to exist as recently as 12,000 years ago. It also covers the evidence in support of the hypothesis that hobbits are truly a new human species (and not deformed Homo sapiens).

Type: Text Resource

This informational text resource is intended to support reading in the content area. The text compares the bone and muscle structure of early Homo sapiens and Neandertals. It describes the ability to run long distances in one and not the other and explains how this difference may have evolved.

Type: Text Resource

This informational text is intended to support reading in the content area. This is a news article describing the partnership between acacia trees and the ants which live on them, as well as the manipulation of the ants into an addictive relationship by the tree.

Type: Text Resource

This informational text resource is intended to support reading in the content area. This is a fabulous article that shows the role and relationship among predators and consumers while also incorporating the process of photosynthesis.

Type: Text Resource

This informational text resource is intended to support reading in the content area. This text explains how carbon dioxide from the atmosphere is changing the oceans. The text describes ocean acidification and ocean warming. The text gives examples of ecosystems that are changing as a result.

Type: Text Resource

This resource is intended to support reading in the content area. This article describes how NASA sent a Centaur rocket attached to a mother craft (LCROSS) to the moon. The rocket detached, crashed and stirred up a plume of debris. The mother craft flew through the debris plume, took pictures and analyzed the plume's contents. The measurements revealed the presence of water in significant quantities.

Type: Text Resource

This article addresses and debunks 10 myths employees often believe about using the Internet at work for personal use and their right to privacy.

Type: Text Resource

This informational text resource is intended to support reading in the content area. This text is about the importance of managers having soft skills in addition to the technical skills, and it explains ten important soft skills for managers to have.

Type: Text Resource

This informational text resource is intended to support reading in the content area. The article describes scientists' views on glacial movement and global warming.

Type: Text Resource

This informational text resource is intended to support reading in the content area. In this text, scientists conduct experiments to determine the decomposition rate of plastic bags.

Type: Text Resource

This informational text is intended to support reading in the content area. The article covers the composition and properties of Earth's layers.

Type: Text Resource

The news article describes the discovery of a placoderm (armored fish) fossil with a facial structure similar to modern vertebrates. It may represent the origin of facial structure for all modern vertebrates. This informational text resource is intended to support reading in the content area.

Type: Text Resource

This informational text is intended to support reading in the content area. A group of scientists predict when and where an earthquake will occur in Costa Rica using the latest technology and research.

Type: Text Resource

This informational text resource is intended to support reading in the content area. This text explains both the history of plate tectonics and continental drift, and the land features that result from the earth's plate movement.

Type: Text Resource

This informational text is intended to support reading in the content area. Researchers found that the hungrier an agouti is the more likely it is to take risks to find food; in turn, they determined that the more risks an agouti took the more likely it was to be killed by an ocelot.

Type: Text Resource

This informational text resource is intended to support reading in the content area. The news article thoroughly describes a transitional primate fossil and includes artist illustrations of the animal in its environment, sidebar information describing the Messel Pit, life for animals in a maar, and how the fossil was named. The article also includes a pop-up glossary of potential problematic vocabulary.

Type: Text Resource

This informational text resource is intended to support reading in the content area. This article gives a brief history on Mendeleev's organization of the first periodic table and then discusses the discovery and short life of ununpentium.

Type: Text Resource

This text supports reading in the content area. This article explores the theories behind the origin of the moon and how scientists' understanding of the moon's origin is evolving based on new research.

Type: Text Resource

This resource supports reading in the content area. This text is about the different interactions the plates on the Earth's surface have with each other and how they affect the Earth's surface.

Type: Text Resource

This resource supports reading in the content area. This is an informational text that provides the explanations and activities of the different movements of plate tectonics. This resource includes text-dependent questions.

Type: Text Resource

This informational text resource is intended to support reading in the content area. The text presents scientific evidence that spiders obtain their nutrition from both plants and animals. Traditionally spiders have been classified as carnivores. This new evidence indicates that they are omnivores.

Type: Text Resource

This informational text is intended to support reading in the content area. The article outlines the differences between recent large earthquakes in the Pacific and the earthquake that caused a devastating tsunami in 2004. It describes how tectonic plates can move in relation to one another in order to explain different geophysical (e.g. tsunami) outcomes.

Type: Text Resource

This informational text resource is intended to support reading in the content area. Humans have been pumping large amounts of groundwater from the Central Valley of California for their own hydration needs. Recent research has found that this loss of mass is causing the Earth's crust to shift, which may be causing small earthquakes and the slight rise of mountains in California.

Type: Text Resource