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All about STEM Comics, called Wild Things: An article type from Science News Explores
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.
Literacy Practice: 3-2-1 Strategy
Use this lesson plan and the provided template to have your students practice the 3-2-1 strategy. This literacy strategy is a quick way to check students’ understanding of a concept, reading or lesson. It helps them summarize and organize their thoughts by listing three responses to one prompt, two responses to another prompt and one response to a final prompt.
All about Technically Fiction: An article type from Science News Explores
Use this lesson plan to learn about an article type called Technically Fiction that is published by Science News Explores in print and online. Technically Fiction articles focus on a fictional phenomenon and explain whether it could be possible and the science it would take to make it a reality. You can also access a lesson plan template that can be used with any Technically Fiction article.
Literacy Practice: Concept Map
Use this lesson plan and the provided template to have your students practice creating concept maps for any article. This literacy strategy boosts critical thinking and reading retention by having students organize information and connect important ideas, concepts and terms.
All about Explainers: An article type from Science News Explores
Use this lesson plan to learn about an article type called Explainers that is published by Science News Explores in print and online. You can also access a lesson plan template that can be used with any Explainer article. Explainer articles take a deep dive into a key scientific concept or process.
Literacy Practice: Cornell Note-Taking System
Use this lesson plan and the provided template to have your students practice the Cornell Note-taking System with any article. This literacy strategy organizes notes into two columns that provide structure for note-taking, analysis and review and that will help increase students’ learning, comprehension and retention.
Covering Carbon
Climate scientists are continuing to develop new methods to sequester atmospheric carbon to help curb climate change. In this activity, students will learn about how carbon can be sequestered through the burial of organic material and review the carbon cycle. Students will practice using percent by mass concepts and dimensional analysis to calculate how much wood would need to be buried to achieve climate targets by the year 2060. As an optional extension, students may then develop a plan to mitigate greenhouse gas production that utilizes biomass burying techniques.
Doggie data
Scientists in the U.K. have mapped the life spans of different dog breeds and found surprising links to body size and nose shape. In this short activity, students can explore data about their favorite dog breeds in a furry fun research study
Social Media Smarts
Social media is part of our everyday lives. It provides entertainment, news, reference information, and so much more. However, not all the content we find on social media is accurate. In this activity, students will investigate the prevalence of misinformation on popular social media platforms. In their investigation, students examine how platforms’ biases and algorithms influence the type of content social media users see and the level of misinformation displayed.
Scaling the world’s largest telescope
The Giant Magellan Telescope could reveal signs of life on faraway planets — mainly because of the telescope’s massive mirrors. But just how big are they? Use this article to investigate the benefits of using scale and relative values in writing. Then solve a related word problem and devise your own useful examples of scale.
Make a Möbius strip
A surprise twist brings a Möbius strip mystery to an end. So simple in structure yet so perplexing a puzzle, the Möbius strip's twisted loop grants some unexpected turns. Learn about what a Möbius strip is by constructing them from paper and tape, then use these deceptively simple structures to challenge intuitive judgments about their construction ratio limits.
Bee Geometry
How clever! Bees use geometry tricks to make the most of their hive’s space. Learn how bees, wasps and other hive-makers accommodate changes in their colony’s needs, answer questions about evolution’s approach to problem-solving and discuss the strengths and weaknesses of analogies as literary devices.