STEM Lesson Plans

This 45-minute lesson uses the book, "How to Catch an Elf", to lead into a cooperative engineering design lesson where students work in teams to build a humane trap to capture an elf.

In this lesson students will use everything they've done in parts 1-3 to analyze how mutations affect proteins. Students will build the mutated proteins that they sequenced in part 3. They will test

In this lesson, students will be introduced to mutations in DNA. They will create beaded or illustrated "codes" to represent 5 different mutations to their original protein codes. These codes will be

In this lesson students will continue to learn about protein synthesis. At the beginning of this lesson students should know that genes have the code to make proteins. Today they will be introduced to

In this lesson students are introduced to the idea that DNA is the code to create proteins and that proteins can be structural or functional. Students are given a problem to create a model of a

This lesson is PART 4 of a four-lesson unit, which focuses on futures thinking, the phenomenon of electricity, closed-system agriculture, and water as a renewable energy resource. “The City of Ember”

This lesson is PART 3 of a four-lesson unit, which focuses on futures thinking, the phenomenon of electricity, closed-system agriculture, and water as a renewable energy resource. “The City of Ember”

This lesson is PART 2 of a four-lesson unit, which focuses on futures thinking, the phenomenon of electricity, closed-system agriculture, and water as a renewable energy resource. “The City of Ember”

This lesson is PART 1 of a four-lesson unit, which focuses on futures thinking, the phenomenon of electricity, closed-system agriculture, and water as a renewable energy resource. “The City of Ember”

This lesson is a 3-4 day lesson on Public Service Announcements for reusing commonly discarded item versus trashing them. The lessons include the power of a Public Service Announcement, components to

Students have the opportunity explore different materials that use nanotechnology and then discuss the key differences between macroscale and nanoscale impacts on those materials.

This lesson uses a PhET Simulation to allow students to collect data on the orbits of planets around our Sun, then summarize and share their results. It is designed for students in Grades 9-12.

This is a multi-day engineering design project. I use this for 2 weeks, a total of ten 50-minute periods. Students will research and design a dog house, creating a 3D model in a web-based computer

Students are introduced to the concept of nanotechnology with a small group research activity about the different industries using nanotechnology.

Students will explore beginning coding thru binary coding and creating a name bracelet.

This lesson is designed around competition. Competition is a driving force behind natural selection. If something can survive to reproduce, the traits are passed on. Students will be completing

After learning about the importance of clean water and different types of filters, students engineer their own water filter.

This is the first of 4 lessons where students will propose and configure a school garden using criteria given by the principal. Students will work in groups of 3 to determine configurations. They will

This lesson teaches students how and why it rains. They will have student-to-student interactions and hands-on learning opportunities. They will also be practicing their counting skills during the

The lesson helps students investigate the purpose of conductors and insulators in various practical applications. The first part of the lesson is to introduce vocabulary and explain its relationship

This lesson is simple lesson plan for 4th grade students. It will challenge students to investigate and demonstrate that electricity is a flow of electrons around the circuit. This lesson will be 50

Students identify the problem with drinking water contamination due to pesticide, prescription medicine, and hormones. They design solutions for a real-world problem that negatively affects the

In this lesson plan, students will be able to build a simple electric motor and study how simple changes affect the motor's rotation. They will learn how energy comes in many forms, and how electric

In this lesson plan, students will be able to investigate battery cells as they construct their own simple batteries: They will know that batteries are a common store of energy for many devices that