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In this activity, students will design an experiment to observe how exercise affects their ability to concentrate in class. Students will then read the Science News Explores article “Short exercise workouts can boost classroom performance” and analyze how their experiment differed from the experiment described in the article.

In a research study about group coordination and cooperation, researchers tasked both humans and ants to solve the same sort of puzzle individually and in groups. Students will describe what they learn about the study’s experimental design, first after watching videos of the ant trials, then after watching videos of the human trials, and finally after reading a comic that summarizes the research study.

In this lesson, students will review the human muscular system and then explore how its movements compare with those of woodpeckers. Students will also examine a diagram that shows different woodpecker muscle groups and analyze data from a research article about how those muscles are used while hammering.

In this activity, students will read the Science News Explores article “There’s life beneath the snow — but it’s at risk of melting away” and reflect on how the author of the article educates the reader. After finishing the article, students will create their own ecosystem portrait to educate their classmates about a unique ecosystem.

Brain scans can help scientists answer questions about how the brain receives information from parts of the body and controls them. In this short activity, students will think of a question that could potentially be answered by brain scans and write a scientific question.

Use this claim, evidence, reasoning (CER) template with any Science News or Science News Explores article to have students identify and evaluate a scientific finding from a recent study.

Lightning is a familiar natural phenomenon, but what causes it? In this activity, students will do a short electrostatics lab with sticky tape. They will also compare what happens in regular lightning with what happens in a megaflash.

In this activity, students will create their own dioramas. To do this, students will observe their local ecosystem and take pictures of parts of their ecosystem that they believe tell a story. Students will then learn about how dioramas can be used to tell scientific or historical stories and will convert their ecosystem stories into 3-dimensional dioramas.

Students will consider how atoms and molecules interact with one another. Then they’ll analyze the effects of different types of energy on chemical reactions and how forces impact the motion of gas bubbles in a solution. Students will work in pairs to formalize their thinking using models to understand matter, energy and forces during chemical reactions.

Students will learn the differences between qualitative and quantitative research methods by observing how covering the holes on a pickleball affects the ball’s drag and motion through the air. Students will leave this activity with an understanding that qualitative and quantitative research methods are both valid forms of research and that personal experiences and qualitative research often precede quantitative research methods.

Pollution that runs off into streams, rivers and lakes can travel far because watersheds are connected by underground aquifers. Students will identify and describe the characteristics of their local and adjacent watersheds before describing how to monitor watershed pollution.

In this lesson, students will review genetics concepts, explore natural and artificial selection, and take a closer look at hybridization.