Instructional Materials in General Science
The WWW sites linked to from this page provide practical assistance for Science
teachers wanting to use the Internet as part of their classroom planning/instruction.
Some of the sites listed below could be classified as "general science" while
others are included on this page because they have resources in more than one
of the major science categories (earth and space science, life science, or physical
science). Please read our disclaimer.
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Academy Curricular Exchange: Science
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Science mini lesson plans from Academy One/Columbia Education Center.
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Activity Search: Science
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Houghton Mifflin's Education Place Activity Search gives teachers access to a wide number of K-12 traditional (i.e., not Internet) activities. It is possible to search for activities by curriculum areas and/or grade levels, or browse the activities by themes.
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Applied Technology Projects
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Lesson plans for over 20 projects for K-7 students in which students learn to apply science linked to BC Curriculum Guides. This site is part of a larger site (Mr. G's Applied Technology Site) that has been developed by Paul Grey of Coal Tyee Elementary School in Nanaimo, B.C.
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AskERIC Lesson Plans - Science
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Numerous lesson plans in Agriculture, Biological and Life Sciences, Careers, Earth science, General Science, History, Instructional Issues, Natural History, Physical Sciences, Process Skills, Space Sciences and Technology covering various grade ranges in K-12.
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Athena Curriculum
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This web site provides curricular and resource material using geophysical and other data sets acquired via Internet. Included are four folders of resources: Oceans, Weather and Atmosphere, Earth Resources, and Space & Astronomy. A folder might have links to curricular resource materials (e.g., data, other WWW sites) as well as instructional materials for the teacher and/or student.
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Barbara's Lesson Plans in Science
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4 science lesson plans for students from K-12.
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Bizarre
Stuff You Can Make In Your Kitchen
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This site is an ever growing warehouse of the kinds of projects some of the more demented of us tried as young people, collecting in one place many of the classic, simple science projects that have become part of the collective lore of amateur science. It is a sort of warped semi-scientific cookbook of tricks, gimmicks, and pointless experimentation, concoctions, and devices, using, for the most part, things found around the house. These are the classics. Strange goo, radios made from rusty razor blades, crystal gardens... amateur mad scientist stuff. If you happen to learn something in the process, consider yourself a better person for it.
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Cardboard Cognition
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A collection of card and board games organized by subject and grade levels (K-College).
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Discover Learning Daybook
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From BC Tel and in partnership with CUEBC, the Daybook is a searchable database of BC teacher deveveloped lesson plans. Search by keyword or enter "Science" for over 80 lesson plans in this subject.
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Do It Yourself
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Although this part of the CBC4Kids site is really intended for kids, the language and/or concepts in these sections may be too difficult for the target audience to grasp on their own. However, the set of simple experiments using home materials are a good source of demonstrations for teachers. Accompanying each experiment is an introduction and extension information which teachers could adapt for student use as necessary.
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Eduzone: Science and Technology Curriculum K-12
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Model daily lesson plans for each of the grades from K-12.
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Encarta Lesson Collection: Science
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Select "Science" on their Lesson Collection Page to find about 50 diverse lesson plans in this subject.
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ERIC Clearinghouse for Science, Mathematics, and Environmental Education: Lesson Plans in Science
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The ERIC Clearinghouse serves as a metalist of links to Science lesson plans. Some of those lesson plans are already linked to directly from CLN, but there are others that may prove useful.
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Explorer Data Base: Science
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The Explorer is a collection of educational resources (instructional software, lab activities, lesson plans ...) for K-12 mathematics and science education." These resources are browsable within broad topic folders or within a curricular framework, or alternatively, you can use a search engine. Several thousand scientific resources are included.
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Fun Experiments
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The Southeastern Michigan Math-Science Learning Coalition presents lessons in Science. These can be viewed by subject area or by age of target audience.
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Georgia College EduNet Lesson Plans: Science
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Lesson plans on pin-hole cameras and the solar system.
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Healthy School Environment
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This interdisciplinary unit will engage middle/junior high school students in participatory science, examination of multi-causal reasons for particular situations, data collection, data organization and data analysis as they conduct field research into the quality of their school environment. The teaching unit is fully developed with lesson plans, assessment guidelines, samples of student work, resource materials, and Internet links. During the project, students will investigate a wide range of school environment issues, including air quality, drinking water quality, temperature, radon levels, carbon dioxide levels, carbon monoxide levels, oxygen levels, formaldehyde content, air flow, illumination, and relative humidity. This is more than a science unit. The teacher developers have integrated the activities to be part of the Social Studies, English, Science, and Math classes in an eight week study.
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Helping Your Child Learn Science
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This online book was developed by the US Department of Education for parents. However teachers may find the suggestions for interesting children in science useful in the classroom as well. Included in the book are activities for the home and for the community.
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Information
Technology Lesson Plans Database
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This database contains over a hundred lesson plans designed and tested by BC educators for teachers in gradesK-10. The lesson plans integrate Information Technology concepts within traditional subject areas. Use the search engine to find the lessons for a particular subject area. The engine will also allow you to search by grade level, setting (e.g., classroom, lab), time to complete the level, and expertise level.
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Integrated Resource Packages (IRPs)
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These Integrated Resource Packages (IRPs) provide some of the basic information that teachers will require to implement the BC Ministry of Education Science curricula in K-12.
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Integrating Mathematics, Science and Language
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A series of multidisciplinary units (math, science, language arts) for K-3 students from SEDL. Included in each unit is an overview and background information for the teacher, lessons and links to associated web sites on dinosaurs. Units include: K (Five Senses, Spiders, Dinosaurs); Grade 1 (Plants and Seeds, The Human Body, Good Health); Grade 2 (Oceans, Weather, Sun and Stars); Grade 3 (Matter, Sound, Simple Machines).
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Inventors and Inventions Theme Page
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This CLN "Theme Page" has links to two types of resources related to the study of inventors and inventions. Students and teachers will find curricular resources (information, content...) to help them learn about this topic. In addition, there are also links to instructional materials (lesson plans) which will help teachers provide instruction in this theme.
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Knowledge Integration Environment (KIE) Curriculum
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Funded by the National Science Foundation and Pacific Bell, this curriculum section contains individual and group projects in K-12 science.
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Kodak Lesson Plans: Science
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More than 30 lesson plans on Science, all of which use photography in some respect.
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Learning for a Sustainable Future (LSF): Classroom Activities
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Learning for a Sustainable Future is a Pan-Canadian nonprofit organization whose mandate is to work with educators from across Canada to integrate the concepts and principles of sustainable development into the curricula at all grade levels. The above link is to their page of classroom activities.
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Learning Space (LS) Science: WWW Research Lessons
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One of the ways to integrate the Internet into your classroom is by using it as a source of current curricular information. Having students conduct research on the WWW is an effective and relevant learning activity but teachers may feel at a loss as to what kind of questions students should be given to research. This site contains over 30 examples of science research questions (organized by grade levels) which pose motivating, genuine problems or open-ended real life problems whose solutions and answers are not easily found. In addition, there is a step-by-step guide to creating your own research questions.
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Lesson Plans for Middle School Science from Goose Hollar
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Lesson topics available at this site include: "Surface tension on coins", "What if you ever quit growing?", "How much skin is on the human body?", "The airfoil airplane", and more.
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Lesson Plans for Technology
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This site has a database of over 200 technology-based lesson plans developed by Florida educators. Known as T'NT (Technology 'Nformation for Teachers), the site can be searched by grade level, subject, or key word. Lessons allow subject area teachers to incorporate technology within business, computing, fine arts, guidance/health (including safety), language arts, math, science, and social studies subject areas.
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LETSNet: Science Units
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LETSNet (Learning Exchange for Teachers and Students through the Internet) is designed to help teachers understand the web and find ways to make effective use of web resources in the classroom. This link is to their Science lesson plans section containing about 10 teaching units or student activities.
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Minnetonka Elementary Science Center
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The Science Center is a warehouse-type resource centre for Minnetonka School District teachers. Some of the information on this web site pertain only to the operations of that center. However, there are other electronic resources which will be useful to any elementary science teacher, including lesson plans (organized by grade levels) and teacher tools (e.g., practical suggestions on science fairs).
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MSTI Elementary Lesson Plan Outlines
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Elementary school lessons exploring plants and animals.
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Optical Illusions
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Over 25 examples of optical illusions that teachers can use to stimulate discussion and interest.
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Primary Resources: Science
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Science worksheets, activities and resources for the primary teacher. Some resources are viewed online and others are in PDF format.
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Project Primary
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Professors and primary teachers have collaborated to produce a set of hands-on activities for the teaching of science organized under the headings of botony, chemisty, geology, physics, and zoology. There is also a report on the constructivist perspective on teaching science and the importance of activities within that.
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Reeko's Mad Scientist Lab
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A wide selection of graded (easy, intermediate, advanced) science experiments suitable for the home or classroom. You can link to a sampling from the right side of this home page but be sure to look at the left side panel as well. The button labelled "experiments" will lead you to more than 30 experiements sortable by subject or difficulty level. Also, the home page's left side panel has direct links to about 10 other experiments.
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Science
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This is a meta-list of links to other sites which contain lessons plans, instructional materials, and other materials.
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Science Fair Theme Page
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This CLN "Theme Page" has links to information that will help both students and teachers interested in participating/managing a science fair.
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Science Lesson Plans
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This link will take you directly to a sub-list of links to about 30 science lesson plans. The sector is part of a larger list called "The Lesson Plans Page." The lessons aren't particularly well described so you may waste some time exploring and the ads can be a nuisance; however the direct links to actual lesson plans are probably worth it.
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Science Resource Center
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Labs, demonstrations, and lessons that science teachers can access in Chemistry, Life Science, and Physics.
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Science Tracks
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ScienceTracks contains science activities that teachers, parents, scientists and other role models can do with children at school or at home.
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Snacks by Subject
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The Exploratorium offers student activities/experiments in a wide number of scientific topics.
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Spreadsheets
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Contributions of spreadsheet ideas for enhancing science instruction.
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Teachers Helping Teachers: Science
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The Teachers Helping Teachers web site is a collection of lesson plans submitted by practicing teachers. New lessons are added to a cumulative Science file throughout the school year so be prepared for some long downloads.
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Teaching Ideas for Primary Teachers
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Looking for ideas, activities or worksheets for elementary students? You'll find a variety at this site organized under the subject heading of Science. You'll also find a feature titled "Time-Fillers". This is a collection of short activities which can be used within a number of subject areas to fill a few spare moments during the day.
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Unmixed Messages
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Unmixed Messages contains samples of hands-on, gender-equitable science activities to captivate girls and boys with science.
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Whelmers
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"Whelmers" are science activities and demonstrations that "whelm" students (as opposed to overwhelming them). They are activities that will spark their curiosity - activities that will catch, for a moment at least, the eye and mind of even the most indifferent student. Each month this site provides 5 new whelmers from a book by Steven L. Jacobs.
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wNet School
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wNetStation, a public television station in New York, hosts a web site designed for K-12 teachers which contains Internet-based lessons for core science curriculum topics. Student and teacher guides are included with each lesson. At the time of review, the site contained lessons on alcohol addiction, genes, the walrus, cloning, buffaloes and wolves, migration, ants, black holes, water cycle, and space shuttle astronauts.
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You Can
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Beakman and Jax provide experiments/activities for kids which teachers can apply to elementary science classrooms.

Note: The sites listed above all have lesson plans/activities for the General Science classroom teacher. For other resources in this subject area (e.g., instructional materials in Earth Science, Life Science, or Physical Science), or for curricular content and theme pages, click the "previous screen" button below. Or, click here if you wish to return directly to the CLN menu which will give you access to educational resources in all of our subjects.