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Check out these lesson plans paired to articles from the May issue of Science News Explores to learn how eyelashes’ properties and structure help them repel water from eyes and use examples of fossils to explore the evolutionary relationship between birds and dinosaurs.

By studying fossils, scientists have nailed down the evolutionary connection between birds and dinosaurs. Students will consider how changes to the way some species are now classified highlight the evolutionary relationship between birds and dinosaurs. This guide also will discuss evidence for this relationship using an example fossil.

Raindrops might fall on your head, but thanks to your eyelashes, they rarely drip into your eyes. Learn how the simple, elegant design of our eyelashes flicks away water. Answer questions about diverse functions of body hair, all while discussing the value of analogies as a literary device used to improve understanding of unfamiliar concepts.

Alcohol-related deaths have increased yearly over the last 20 years. From 2019 to 2020, in the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic, the death rate from alcohol use rose sharply — at a much greater rate than in recent years.

Drastic cuts to greenhouse emissions are needed to prevent even more catastrophic consequences than the rising sea levels, extreme weather and other impacts our warming world has already faced. Scientists have mapped out potential paths to net-zero, when greenhouse gases emitted are balanced by those removed. This includes decreases in emissions from transportation, industry and other sectors.

Review types of ecological relationships among organisms then have students identify which relationship type matches different examples of organism pairs and learn how geology might explain the existence of ghostly blue lights that have been haunting a small town.

Have students explore ecological relationships among organisms through a case study on a newly identified fungus named after biologist Sir David Attenborough that zombifies spiders — taking over their bodies before killing them. Students will compare and contrast commensalism, mutualism, parasitism and predation and then use the definitions to identify examples.

Strange ghostly blue lights have haunted the little town of Summerville, S.C. for decades. Reports of spectral balls of light floating along a desolate stretch of railroad inspired a ghostly local legend. Learn how legends can inspire real-world science. Then discuss similarities and differences between scientific theory and legend while answering questions about a proposed geologic explanation for this phenomenon.

Space rocks that have smashed into our planet have left impact craters. Many of the craters have been wiped away by erosion, but scientists have cataloged the survivors, including some that are over one billion years old.

Scientists have had a rough draft of the human genome for some 20 years. They hoped to use it for precision medicine, treatments based on an individual’s DNA. But an understanding of the differences between different people’s DNA has been hampered by a lack of diversity in genetic studies known as genome-wide association studies.

Use these lesson plans paired to articles from the April issue of Science News Explores to introduce students to STEM comic strips that tell the stories of animal research studies and have them create their own, download a 3-2-1 literacy template to use with any article and cover concepts of electrical fields in Earth’s atmosphere.

How can comic strips help teach experimental design of research studies? Use this lesson plan to learn about an article type called Wild Things that is published by Science News Explores in print and online. Wild Things use comic strips that tell the stories of research studies on animals’ biology and behavior. You can also access a lesson plan template that can be used with any Wild Things article.