The goals of this promising practice lesson are to: a) expand students' knowledge of living organisms and further develop their ability to group, or classify, living organisms according to a variety of common features, and b) introduce students to scientific groupings of organisms.

The purpose of this promising practice lesson is to orient students to the plight of endangered species and to help them understand and gain perspective on human issues that continue to endanger species and threaten our global environment. The lesson looks at endangered species from a global perspective. The lesson could be expanded to include a look at Ohio's endangered species using Ohio's Endangered Wildlife and/or Wetlands: Ohio's Endangered Spaces. (author/ts)

The purpose of this promising practice lesson is to introduce students to energy through the idea of energy transformations and conversions, and to develop students' ideas of what energy is and how it can be measured. This investigation could be the beginning of a unit on energy. The lesson begins with students exploring several activities on the Atom's Family website. For best results students should carry out the investigations described in the website. Students then pick up some foundational information about energy as they read part of the Energy Story, an online book. Finally students design and conduct an experiment around a question they devise about heating water. Safety considerations should be reviewed with students before they begin their experiments.(author/ts)

The study of science as an intellectual and social endeavor, the application of human intelligence to figuring out how the world works, should have a prominent place in any curriculum that has science literacy as one of its aims. This investigation focuses on inventions because it allows students to focus on some of the more practical applications of the scientific enterprise. Even at points in American history when women and minorities were excluded from the formal scientific enterprise, ordinary people from all walks of life contributed to science and technology as inventors of products that we use every day. This is important because children in early adolescence need to see science-related careers as a real option for themselves. Students use a variety of resources to investigate the history of invention and the motivation of inventors. Student products include individual reports on individual inventors and a group timeline showing the history of invention. Use of this resource requires Internet access and Acrobat Reader. (author/kct)

This lesson is designed to help students better understand Earth's oceans and the role they play in the water cycle. The two-fold lesson begins with an experiment that demonstrates water evaporating and coming back down. In the end, students should realize that water in the ocean evaporates into the atmosphere and comes back down as precipitation. This lesson is a good introduction to future lessons on weather and earth's climatic changes. (author/kct)

The purpose of this lesson is to acquaint students with a type of ecosystem (the submerged aquatic vegetation of a bay) and how the different organisms of that ecosystem compete with one another for resources. Students research plants and animals that live in the submerged aquatic vegetation (SAV) of a bay area. After researching the organisms, students do class presentations and create a food web using pictures of all of the organisms. At the end of the lesson, they discuss ideas of organisms sharing food, space, water, air, and shelter. This lesson makes use of the Chesapeake Bay as an example, but could be adapted as necessary to make use of another bay area of interest. The lesson includes several components (research, oral reports, creation of a food web, and discussion), and will most likely take 3-4 class periods to complete. (author/kct)