This resources identifies best practices for giving presentations or talks in middle school classrooms and was developed to help scientists and engineers who have been asked to visit a middle school classroom. It provides helpful suggestions before, during, and after the presentation, as well questions for the teacher (e.g., what content do you want me to cover, what have students already learned about this content?).

This manual provides simple demonstrations to show how lenses and mirrors are used to create telescopes. It was created for use by the Night Sky Network of astronomy clubs.

Forest fires, brush fires, and slash and burn agriculture are a significant force for environmental change. Remote sensing of fires, smoke and burn scars allows for improved detection of fire characteristics as well as their short- and long-term effects on ecosystems. This site from NASA's Earth Observatory discusses the importance of fires, trace gases emissions, aerosol emissions, and NASA and NOAA missions for monitoring global fires. Case studies and data sets are also available.

This article provides a brief discussion of the issues surrounding global warming. Topics include greenhouse gas emissions, the possible consequences of global warming, and debates among proponents and opponents about whether global warming is indeed happening and whether it represents a danger to the planet.

This is a lesson about planetary atmospheres. Learners will interpret real spectral graphs from missions to determine what some of Earth, Venus, and Mars‰Ûª atmosphere is composed of and then mathematically compare the amount of the greenhouse gas, CO2, on the planets Venus, Earth, and Mars in order to determine which has the most. Students brainstorm to figure out what things, along with greenhouse gases, can affect a planet‰Ûªs temperature. The activity is part of Project Spectra, a science and engineering program for middle-high school students, focusing on how light is used to explore the Solar System.

In this activity, students work in groups to create a presentation that illustrates the meaning of the statement "To make an apple pie from scratch you must first invent the universe." Students pick an element that can be found in apple pie and trace its evolutionary history back to the birth of the universe itself. They also share their vision of the environment in which that element may find itself 5 or so billion years from now after the Earth is long gone. Presentations are intended to demonstrate student understanding of the origins and life cycle of matter, so this activity is appropriate as a conclusion to a unit. This activity is part of the "What is Your Cosmic Connection to the Elements" information and activity booklet. The booklet includes teacher notes, grading guide and student handouts.

This is a lesson about visual spectra. Learners will explore different ways of displaying visual spectra, including colored "barcode" spectra, like those produced by a diffraction grating, and line plots displaying intensity versus color, or wavelength. Students learn that a diffraction grating acts like a prism, bending light into its component colors. The activity is part of Project Spectra, a science and engineering program for middle-high school students, focusing on how light is used to explore the Solar System.

Visualize the gravitational force that two objects exert on each other. Change properties of the objects in order to see how it changes the gravity force.

Move the sun, earth, moon and space station to see how it affects their gravitational forces and orbital paths. Visualize the sizes and distances between different heavenly bodies, and turn off gravity to see what would happen without it!

This is a website that serves as an online textbook to tell the story of William Gilbert, English physicist during the time of Queen Elizabeth I, and the history of the discovery of Earth's magnetism. Learners can read about historical studies of magnetism, connections between sunspot activity and the Earth's magnetic field, the internal dynamo responsible for generating the Earth's magnetic field, magnetic polarity and reversals, and geomagnetic storms.

The Happy Scientist is totaly free for everyone. You do not need to log in. Just explore, have fun, and learn some science along the way.
This site will help you find videos and pages on the topic you want.

In this hands-on activity, learners will build a solar cooker by lining a box with reflective material and adding a translucent cover. The cooker can be used to make food products. This activity recommends use of empty (clean) pizza boxes. This activity requires a sunny outdoor location for an extended period of time.

Students explore heat transfer and energy efficiency using the context of energy efficient houses. They gain a solid understanding of the three types of heat transfer: radiation, convection and conduction, which are explained in detail and related to the real world. They learn about the many ways solar energy is used as a renewable energy source to reduce the emission of greenhouse gasses and operating costs. Students also explore ways in which a device can capitalize on the methods of heat transfer to produce a beneficial result. They are given the tools to calculate the heat transferred between a system and its surroundings.

This is an activity about utilizing proportional mathematics to determine the height of lunar features. Learners will use the length of shadows to calculate the height of some of the lunar features. This activity is Astronomy Activity 6 in a larger resource entitled Space Update.

In this lesson, learners will use History of Discovery cards and interpretive skits to examine how scientists throughout history have explored Saturn. The lesson enables students to discern the multicultural nature of scientific inquiry and to see how technology improvements increase our ability to solve scientific mysteries. The lesson also prepares students to create and interpret their own timelines spanning the years 1610 to 2010. The timelines depict scientists, technologies, and discoveries. This is lesson 4 of 6 in the Saturn Educators Guide.

This resource shows how generations of explorers have taken us, step by step, further into the expanse of the universe. Using photographs and text, this resource takes readers out of our solar system, into the realm of the stars, the galaxies, and finally the vast panorama of the observable universe.

This is an activity about ultraviolet light. Learners will make ultraviolet light detector bracelets and use them to experiment with artificial light and sunlight. Then, they experiment with various sun-blocking materials to see how such materials impact the beads' absorption of ultraviolet light. Special UV detecting beads are required for this activity. This is Activity 3 of the Sun As a Star afterschool curriculum.

Learners will use a variety of resources to conduct research to try to find answers to the questions they generated in previous activities. They continue to work the way scientists do by communicating what they learned from their research about Mars and present questions they still have and that others might want to think about researching in the future. This is activity 8 of 9 in Mars and Earth: Science Learning Activities for After School.

In this lesson about cosmic rays, students will describe why cosmic rays are dangerous to astronauts. Includes information about student preconceptions. This is activity 3 of 4 from "The Cosmic Ray Telescope for the Effects of Radiation (CRaTER)."

This is a lesson about the distance to Saturn. Learners will use simple props to create a playground model for size and distance for the Sun, Earth, and Saturn ‰ÛÓ then walk on their scale model to Saturn. Writing activities engage students in reflecting on experience and in comparing and contrasting. This is lesson 4 of 12 in the Mission to Saturn Educators Guide, Reading Writing Rings, for grades 3-4.