STEM Lesson Plans

This hands-on lesson introduces students to gardening and the sustainability of food. Students will grow small gardens and manage them.

In this lesson, students will practice the skill of sequencing the main parts of The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle. Students will then use the indi robot and coding tiles to create a model

This lesson provides context for the 6th grade physical science standards dealing with matter. It enables students to anchor their learning in real world issues as they combine data literacy and art

In this lesson, students use real-world data to explore criteria for air pollutants. If students continue to the next lesson in this series, they create data-based art to deepen and demonstrate their

This lesson uses a diagram of a football being punted to demonstrate the forces of motion and the transfer of energy. Students are then challenged to apply what they learned to engineer a mechanical

In this lesson, students explore gravitational potential energy changes with the mass of an object and the height from which it is dropped. Students record the drop in slow motion to capture the

Does light have energy? Students will engage in a practical experiment to witness how light can induce changes such as heating, altering colors, and setting objects in motion. As homework, students

This is the third lesson in a 4-lesson unit about the physics of bat and ball style games. Students will explore force, motion, kinetic energy and potential energy through projects and gameplay. In

This lesson is about exploring Arizona's state bird, the cactus wren, that lives in the desert, has special body parts and behaviors that help it survive in its harsh environment. Students will learn

Students will investigate the properties of different types of matter and apply the concept of "P1: Matter" to design, model, and 3D print an object using a MakerBot 3D printer. Hands-On STEM Design

Students will create a "football" to practice kicking accuracy. They will collect data and create a graph showing their results. After students will learn about a kickers role in the NFL, what a field

In this project, 8th-grade students will engage in hands-on exploration of elastic potential energy and its conversion to kinetic energy using small catapults. Through experimentation and data

This epic road trip is an end-of-year project where students are given the opportunity to reflect on their learning and select 6 unique stops in Arizona that a tourist should visit. Students are led

This lesson helps students understand the properties of 3D solids from their 2D base shapes and teaches them how to use CAD software to build their own 3D models of real world objects by breaking them

This lesson is a 6-14 day unit consisting of 30 minute lessons taking students through the introduction of energy flow from the sun through the food chain. The lessons culminate with students showing

This is a continuation lesson in which we compare student data to the previous day's data using GeoGebra to help us generate dot plots and calculate statistics.

Students will create dot plots (both physically and using technology) to represent class data, determine important statistics, and interpret those statistics in context.

Students get to investigate how energy transfers using different phenomena. They practice using a Colorado PhET simulation on the differences between potential and kinetic energy. Students will

Structured activities to support learning up Quantum Model as improvement over traditional "solar system" atomic model, or Bohr's atomic model. Students learn to relate Quantum numbers to describe

Students learn about the chemistry that exists in some of the world's oldest surviving paintings. This lesson is the final part of a 3 part painting series, and focuses on binding agents in paint

Lesson plan integrating Arizona Science and ELA standards for comparing and researching animal cells and plant cells, followed by a creative video project where students personify the parts of a

Students use a 2-D physics sandbox, called Algodoo, to simulate the factors that might affect the period of a circular orbit of a planet about a star. Students develop Kepler's 3rd Law conceptually by

In this unit, students will explore the interdependencies in a system and uncovers circular causal connections. Students will use a stock-flow game, specifically the “Mammoth Game” to simulate how

This lesson is part 2 of 2, Days 3 and 4. This lesson is set up to have students explore the friction bridge designed by Leonardo Da Vinci. Students have discovered the inventor and become familiar