Utilizing the Lake Superior watershed and the St. Louis River as a foundation for learning
Take this one-page quality visual aid out with you on your late fall or winter hike. Students will love to look for burrows, dens, scratchings, tracks and traces of animals when outside. Have students make burrows or dens using snow, branches, leaves, or bring a tarp - then they will be able to become animals, imagining a shelter in the woods. The curriculum download is a PDF of this visual aid.
This is a one-pager, student sheet with quality images of cedar, balsam fir, red pine, spruce, and white pine needles for field identification and extension activities. Have students make a display by gathering specimens, researching, or for smaller students, simply writing the names of the trees by the correct images. Regardless, GO OUTSIDE with your students and collect some samples of these trees for your classroom. Tell the Ojibwe oral story that explains this phenomenon. The curriculum download is a PDF version of the student sheet.
Students will begin to understand the water cycle by exploring one stage of it, runoff/infiltration. The curriculum download is a PDF of the plan for this lesson.
Although other places in the country and in the world have lots of snow, they aren’t as special as ours. Our Great Lakes give us extra lake effect snow! So, the next time you are around the Great Lakes and it’s snowing, try to remember how special our area really is! The curriculum download is a PDF containing everything you need to run this lesson with your class, including a link to a video lesson to share with your students.
If you live around the Great Lakes, you are familiar with snow….lots and lots of snow. The Greats lake region often has more snow than other areas throughout the country because we have something called “lake effect snow.” But just what exactly is lake effect snow? In this lesson students will investigate this phenomenon to understand how the lake effect causes heavy snow in the areas around the Great Lakes by focusing on phase state change from liquid to vapor. The curriculum download is a PDF of the lesson plan. The supporting file is a PDF of the student worksheets.
Sometimes students struggle with understanding where data should go on a table. The attached cards have a date or a date and a measurement. Students should learn that the units are important because it shows us what measurement it is and that we can't just put the data anywhere. If we take data on a Friday, it shouldn't go on Wednesday's row. This game helps students learn about recording data and the importance of units. The curriculum download is the PDF lesson plan for this activity. The supporting file is the data table and cards with a date or a date and a measurement in PDF format.
This lesson will help inform students about abstracts, backgrounds, methods, and conclusions that are written for informational papers and posters in order to present research conducted. Students will practice writing their own components after learning what is required for each component. This will help them in understanding how science is presented as well as practice writing skills they can use in the future. The curriculum download is a PDF is a lesson plan for this activity that includes student resources and writing sheets. The supporting file is a PowerPoint slideshow to support the lesson plan.
Students will use the cards to assist them in using words to describe what they see, feel, and smell outside. This will help guide them when they write a descriptive paper. The curriculum download is a PDF including the lesson plan and student writing sheet. The supporting file is a PDF that is a variation of this lesson for younger learners.