This on-line project is part of the Center for Improved Engineering and Science Education (CIESE) program, which has developed internet activities for the elementary, middle, and high school level student. Students measure the temperature, record the number of minutes of sunlight per day over a predetermined week, and determine their global coordinates. Each class then posts their data to this web ... Full description.

This lesson uses a discrepant event to pique curiosity and provide an excellent metaphor for a problem in science that can be addressed in a scientific way. Water is poured into a magic box, and out comes a much larger volume of water (or other liquid). Students will learn that science is uncertain because scientists can make more than one workable model to explain their observations. Full description.

In this activity students observe what happens when various amounts of water are poured into a black box and propose models to explain their observations. When water is poured into the funnel, students observe that sometimes water emerges through the outlet tube and sometimes it does not. Also, the amount of water that does emerge is not constant. Students share their initial ideas with others and ... Full description.

In this lesson, each student is given a block of wood and a screw (or nail), and is asked to put the screw into the block, without any tool (like a screwdriver or hammer). Their efforts, with varying success, lead to a discussion of contrivances, using various items and strategies as make-do (contrived) tools for which they were not intended, and an exploration of many examples of contrivances or ... Full description.

A common criticism of natural selection is: How can it produce novel complex useful structures by pure random chance? Darwin argued that selection is not a random process, and furthermore, it is cumulative. This lesson provides a way for students to actually compare the cumulative non-random selection of Darwin with the non-cumulative version so often erroneously implied. Students attempt to produce ... Full description.

In this lesson, students will learn that geological time can be measured in several different ways, providing independent lines of evidence for measuring deep time and sequencing geological and biological events of the past. Students explore different methods of measuring geological time, comparing the time dimensions, mechanisms, and materials used for each. Full description.

This lesson teaches students that traits are usually favored by natural selection only when they result in more reproductively successful offspring. Students go out onto the school lawn and play the role of birds, picking up toothpick stick worms which have been previously scattered in equal numbers of green-stained and unstained. Birds are chased away before the worm population drops too low. Back ... Full description.