Stem Chemistry Activities

[Mahmod Ohner]

Thereis a wealth of STEM curricula and classroom resources available to assist educators in developing in students thinking, reasoning, teamwork, investigative and creative skills that they can use in all areas of their lives. The Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education is committed to providing relevant educational materials and teacher resources to assist educators in engaging students in STEM subjects. Below you will find activities and free STEM lesson plans that support classroom learning.

Celebrate April 8, 2024, the Great American Eclipse with this lesson plan! This lesson aims to deepen students' understanding of solar and lunar eclipses through hands-on activities, discussions, and explorations of historical and cultural contexts. By examining the positions of celestial bodies during eclipses, constructing models, and analyzing real-life scenarios, students will develop a comprehensive grasp of eclipse phenomena and their significance.

In this lesson, students will familiarize themselves with the germination process through videos, observations, questions, and sorting/analysis of seeds. Students will then organize picture cards of the seed germination process in order and detail what is occurring at each step. Lastly, the students will be challenged to plan and carry out an investigation of the life cycle of a plant by growing a plant from a seed and recording its changes over a period of time.

During this lesson, students will embark on a thrilling adventure through history and science as they examine the fascinating world of maritime exploration. They'll begin by reading and annotating an article about Bartolomeu Dias and categorizing famous shipwrecks in the southern cape of Africa based on the main cause of the shipwreck. This activity will help them gain a deeper understanding of the impact of weather and other factors on maritime exploration and the importance of safety measures for sailors. They'll then explore scientific concepts such as convection currents and sea temperatures and learn how they can explain weather patterns. Finally, they'll put their critical thinking and persuasive writing skills to the test as they write a letter to a friend who is considering taking a high-paying job as a commercial fisherman in the area. This lesson plan is designed to be informative, educational, and engaging as students set sail on a thrilling adventure through history and science!

Students will get a glimpse into what it is like to be a real scientist by planning and proposing a STEM project that will benefit the community. Students will begin by looking at what goes into creating a project proposal including time, resources, motivation, formatting, topics, and creating realistic goals. Students will then brainstorm and choose a specific topic for their project. Then, they will work (individually or with a group) to write a proposal that will be reviewed by their peers and other community stakeholders. This lesson plan is designed to engage students in a project that encourages student inquiry, innovative engineering design, and community engagement within the classroom.

This lesson plan is to engage students in an interactive and thought-provoking learning experience that connects the concepts of emotions and artificial intelligence. By using fun activities, class discussions, and hands-on training of an AI system, students will gain a deeper understanding of how AI works, its possible purposes, and the ethical considerations that should be considered when designing and using machines. This lesson plan is designed to foster critical, creative, and collaborative thinking in middle students and to explore the complex relationship between technology, humanity, and ethics.

This lesson plan is to help students understand the impact of Devil Weed, an invasive species, on the ecosystem in Serengeti National Park. Through watching a video about the Great Wildebeest migration, participating in a lab activity to collect data on Devil Weed, and engaging in class discussion, students will explore the complex interactions between wildebeests, grass/resource, and Devil Weed, and evaluate claims, evidence, and reasoning in ecosystems. The lesson will emphasize the importance of taking multiple samples and averaging data to increase the probability of accurate results and encourage students to apply what they have learned to future scientific investigations or environmental projects.

This lesson plan consists of three distinct activities that can be completed separately or as a cohesive unit. The first activity, What Makes a Shadow , serves as a hook to assess students' prior knowledge of shadows and helps build vocabulary by categorizing objects as opaque, translucent, or transparent. In the second activity, Patterns in the Sky , students will construct a tower outside and measure how shadows change throughout the day. The final activity, Create a Sundial that Correctly Displays the Time of Day , is an outdoor STEM project that challenges students to build a functional sundial, helping them understand how the sun's placement in the sky creates observable patterns in Earth science phenomena such as climate changes, weather patterns, and shifts in the planet over time.

In this lesson students will explore how to graph trigonometric graphs and identify the period, amplitude, and asymptotes. Students will learn to recognize the graphs which will be important in future lessons as well as in other disciplines. The lesson will launch by recognizing sinusoidal waves in the real world such as visible waves. Then students will examine parts of a sine wave such as the period, amplitude, and asymptote which will allow them to identify the parts of cosine, cosecant, secant, tangent, and cotangent graphs.

In this lesson, students recall their knowledge of polygons which will catch their attention because it allows them to draw from what they know, which is a different means of expression than is typically used. Polygons are all around students in the world (architecture, art, etc.). Understanding the characteristics of polygons will help students to describe the world around them.

The lesson has an activity that uses the game of Uno to introduce proofs. In Uno, there are rules you must follow. These rules can be used to justify certain moves. Thus, students will be engaged with proofs in the form of a game to engage their attention. Writing proofs allows students to practice their logic skills. Logic is used across domains and is necessary for everyday functioning. Students will learn how to write proofs, which will help them organize their thinking and understand how to justify what they are doing.

Over the course of many weeks, students will create a Remotely Operated Amphibious Vehicle for Environmental Exploration (ROAVEE) by utilizing the engineering design process. During this project, students will collaborate on a design and create a product to test. Each group will be assigned a different section of the engineering design process for the ROAVEE. The class will test the final product and collect and analyze data in multiple environments.

In this lesson, students will become entomologists by using the great outdoors to go on a bug hunt. Throughout the lesson, students will investigate the physical features of bugs. By comparing bugs and humans, students will create a model of a solution to a human problem by mimicking the anatomy of bugs.

Rotations are all around us in the real world. Car wheels and bike wheels, gears, and Ferris wheels all rotate. During class, the students will analyze the rotation of the hands of a clock and apply the academic language involved in measuring degrees to describe the rotation of clock hands.

Quadrilaterals are all around us! In one activity, the students will match the names of quadrilaterals to shapes they see in their everyday lives. In addition, this lesson incorporates analytical thinking about how to represent relationships between concepts. As the students build their graphic organizers, they will learn the skills of categorization and classification. The examples of graphic organizers will show students how these skills are useful in everyday life to help them organize their thinking on any topic.

Exponential growth is all around students in the growth of diseases, population, and interest. This lesson incorporates the exponential growth of wildfire, a phenomenon that students see on the news. Students will build on their prior knowledge of the law of exponents to model exponential growth.

Students will learn about negative numbers through real life examples throughout the lesson. Students have learned the positive numbers, but in this lesson they will explore negative numbers. The class will begin with a visual exercise using a runner to move left and right. Learning about negative numbers will allow students to express more real life examples such as ones that require direction.

This lesson is intended to be an introduction to artificial intelligence (AI) where students gain a clear understanding of what artificial intelligence is, how AI benefits society, and how AI works. Students with no prior knowledge or experience with the topic will have the opportunity to train a computer program to recognize images. By training the computer, students will learn how AI can be used to help solve the real-world problem of cleaning the oceans.

In this lesson, students will find the area and perimeter of the front of the greenhouses at their school in order to fit insulation on the greenhouse. The students will also engage in an activity about making improvements to a soccer field. By using an example that is relevant to the real world, students will be able to connect it to their personal experiences. Incorporating a problem that has students applying their knowledge to solve a real-world problem will help them engage with the mathematical concepts as well as practical thinking.

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