Arkansas 4-H Foundation has a wonderful opportunity for students 5-19 in Arkansas. Schoolchildren can submit any 2-dimensional art, including photographs, for consideration in the Art of Farming contest. The contest benefits Arkansas 4-H, which serves thousands of kids in urban and rural Arkansas each year, but participants do not… Continue reading
Insects are extremely different from us, and that’s a hard thing for kids to grasp. When you divide your class into groups during an insect unit, use this almost bug-like method to help kids get how different insects are from humans. An interesting extra tidbit: crickets recognize other members of… Continue reading
One particular day stands out in my mind when I think of junior high teaching. I was presenting a lesson on prehistoric tools. Force and motion, mostly, but a good dose of archaeology and anthropology, too. It’s a fun lesson, and I had a lot of hands-on elements. I… Continue reading
Sharks are fascinating creatures, very different from us and from fish, and they offer just enough scariness to make an exciting classroom study. Here are two of our favorite approaches to the topic. Basic background: National Geographic has several lesson plans about sharks, including Are Sharks as Dangerous as We… Continue reading
Sounds are caused when an object vibrates, causing vibrations in the medium through which it travels (generally air), which in turn cause vibrations in the ear drum of a listener. Faster vibrations create higher pitched sounds than slower vibrations. To learn about pitch, you can approach the question from… Continue reading
Pluto used to be the ninth planet in the solar system. For a while it was the eighth planet. Now Pluto has been demoted and is no longer a planet at all.You can read the official announcement made in 2006 and see that there are three criteria for planethood,… Continue reading
April 12th is Yuri’s Night, the anniversary of the first human spaceflight, and April 12th, 2011, is the 50th anniversary of the flight. We know you’re not in your classroom tonight, but we think you can kick off a celebration that lasts till Earth Day. Yuri Gagarin was a… Continue reading
One topic engineers often work with now is renewable energy. Look at some of the types of renewable energy available and how engineers work to harness that energy for people to use. Some online resources about different types of energy: A simple information and worksheet page about different forms of… Continue reading
What is an earthquake? An earthquake is movement of the earth that causes shaking and rolling of the earth. This is generally the result of movement of the tectonic plates of the earth, though some recent quakes where I live have, some say, been caused by unsafe methods of… Continue reading
All of the things we make are made from materials of one kind or another. Sometimes they’re made from raw materials, and sometimes we have to make the materials first before we can make objects from them. The science of materials at its simplest is suitable for preschool classes,… Continue reading
