This page, from the University of Illinois Extension, has an animated cartoon designed to help 3rd through 5th grade students gain an appreciation of trees, observe trees in their everyday lives, and develop an interest in discovering more about trees. It is intended for adults to work with children to explore the secret life of trees. It meets several of the Illinois statewide learning goals for ... Full description.

In this lesson, students will observe and document similarities and differences between parts of plants. It supports students interacting with nature and provides them with a framework for their observations by offering them opportunities to explore, question, and document similarities and differences among plant parts. Students will identify and sort plant parts through hands-on activities and group ... Full description.

This tutorial is about the Arctic tundra biome; the plants and animals found there; and the amount of sunlight, temperatures, seasons and permafrost. Examples of Arctic ecosystem interactions, food chains, and biological adaptations to the Arctic Coastal Plain are given. There are photographs of wolves, caribou, arctic hares, minks, lemmings, arctic foxes, polar bears, seals, walruses, ptarmigans, ... Full description.

In this lesson, students learn the basics about dinosaur eggs and compare the life cycle of an animal hatched from an egg with one born from its mother's womb. They will create a dinosaur egg and use a map to locate countries where dinosaur eggs have been found. They may also list all the animals that are born from an egg and discuss how a newborn emerging from the womb of its mother is different ... Full description.

In this activity students first work in small groups and look through books to find three interesting facts about dinosaurs. Groups report their facts to the rest of the class while the teacher uses students' responses to create a semantic map. Students are shown the difference between the lizard and the dinosaur. On the included worksheet students will color only the animals that are dinosaurs. When ... Full description.

In this classroom activity young students explore the meanings behind dinosaurs' names. It opens with background information for teachers about the Greek and Latin roots of dinosaur names. After discussing what they know about dinosaurs, students learn that dinosaur names can describe what the dinosaur looked like, how it might have acted, or where it was found. Working as a class, students use a ... Full description.

In this classroom activity, younger students compare their feet to the footprint of a large Apatosaur. The activity opens with background information about the enormous size range of dinosaurs and a discussion in which the students name some of the dinosaurs they know and describe how big they were. Then, each student will make an outline of their own footprint and fasten it onto the full-size Apatosaur ... Full description.

This lesson introduces elementary students to the concept of soring living things into groups according to certain features. Students look at two kinds of dinosaurs based upon the structure of the pelvis and categorize them accordingly. Full description.

In this lesson, students investigate the living creatures in a drop of pond water under magnification. This lesson is the second in a two-part series on microorganisms. It is designed to follow the first lesson, but can also stand alone. Students observe microscopic organisms found in pond water using a hand lens, 30x magnification, and 100x magnification. Observing these organisms should stimulate ... Full description.

This activity introduces students to the range of sizes among dinosaurs and other prehistoric animals, helping them to visualize the actual sizes and gain a feel for the mathematical process of scaling. This activity contains goals, materials, methods, and discussion questions. Full description.