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Lesson Plan Central Archive

PBS Learning Media: Investigating Kinetic and Potential Energy - Jun 12, 2013

This multi-day module engages multiple sensory paths and learning styles through video, interactive simulation, animations, hands-on activities, and computational reasoning exercises. Developed for use in middle school.

Physics Teaching Technology Resource: Learning Cycles on Motion - Jun 5, 2013

This learning cycle features 19 videotaped experiments, organized sequentially for introducing fundamentals of motion in introductory physics courses. Each video includes learning goal, prior information needed to understand the material, and elicitation questions. Topics include constant velocity, constant acceleration, falling objects, projectiles, and the physics of juggling.

Science Educator's Guide to Assessment - Jun 5, 2013

This assessment guide is designed to help science teachers find their way through the maze of assessment by providing clearly written purposes and methods.

TryEngineering: Lesson Plans - Jun 5, 2013

Want to do more integration of engineering practices? Here are turn-key lessons with student guides and worksheets.

Science NetLinks: Sensing Energy - May 17, 2013

Kids use UV detection beads to explore unseen energy from the sun.  Great fun -- appropriate for upper elementary.

NEED Project: Energy of Moving Water - May 17, 2013

13 complete lessons for teaching about hydropower and conversion of moving water to electrical energy.

TryEngineering: Solar Structures - May 17, 2013

3-day unit explores passive solar design: students work on teams to build & test a scaled solar "house" that meets quality constraints.

EERE Energy Education: Comparing Light Bulbs - Apr 3, 2013

Kids investigate which type of lightbulb is most fuel-efficient:  the incandescent bulb or the compact fluorescent light bulb (CFL).

Fermilab: Data-based Investigations - Apr 3, 2013

Investigations to support core proficiencies via use of data available through national laboratories. Activities include Top Quark Mass, Investigating Special Relativity, Cosmic Ray e-Lab, Search for Higgs, and Sloan Sky Server Project.

Teach Engineering: Designing a Spectroscopy Mission - Apr 3, 2013

As part of ground- and space-based missions, engineers design spectrographs and other amazing equipment to study our universe. This lab for high school physics lets students develop ground or space-based missions to accommodate their own spectrograph designs.

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