5th Grade Earth Science Websites
Websites for 5th Grade Earth Science
Earth’s Systems / Space Systems: Stars and the Solar System
These websites support the NGSS standards at this grade level and are labeled by the type of website that it is (Student or Teacher Background, Student Online Activities, Teacher Activities, Student or Teacher Videos).
Back to our Grade Level Programs & Websites Page
| Resource Link | Abstract | Website Types |
|---|---|---|
| ASTER Earth Image Database | ASTER = Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflections Radiometer. This site has several different ways of looking at and exploring the details of this great source for data on planet earth | Student Background;Teacher Background |
| Bad Astronomy | Older site, but information is still accurate. As much fun as the movies are to review and the news is to analyze, it's the everyday misconceptions that are the heart and soul of Bad Astronomy. We learn a lot from school and our parents, but a lot of what fills our brain is "common knowledge", things we seem to accumulate out of thin air. Everyone knows that you can stand an egg on end on the first day of spring... or can you? Of course toilets flush the other way in the southern hemisphere... don't they? | Student Background;Teacher Background |
| BBC Science Clip Force and Movement | Interactive Video on Force and Movement. Don't forget to check out other clips on the site. | Student Background;Student Online Activities |
| Build a Solar System | a terrific calculator for scaling the solar system – plug in the diameter you’d like to see the Sun and the rest of the planets are revealed, along with a lot of other interesting relationships. Also features links to solar system modeling activities and other cool stuff like “how much do you weigh on other planets.” | Student Background;Student Online Activities;Teacher Background |
| CA State Water Resources Board | This site has links to many resources about water. It has a section on games and interactives for kids, lesson plans for teachers, grants for teachers and more | Student Background;Student Online Activities;Teacher Activities;Teacher Background |
| Challenger Center for Space Science Education | Using space exploration as a theme, the Challenger Center web site offers a large searchable database of hands-on lessons related to the solar system and earth sciences, as well as podcasts, webcasts and interdisciplinary design challenges to do in your classroom. | Student Online Activities;Teacher Activities |
| Children of the Earth | Activities, links, blogs on many issues of environmental education. | Student Background;Student Online Activities;Teacher Activities;Teacher Background |
| City Technology | A collaboration of college faculty in Engineering and Education, public elementary teachers and children. | Student Background;Student Online Activities;Teacher Activities;Teacher Background |
| Common Trees of the Pacific Northwest | How to identify trees of the Pacific Northwest (Many are common to California as well). Has a nice on-line dichotomous key and a "mystery tree" section that lets you test your identification skills using the dichotomous key. | Student Background;Student Online Activities;Teacher Background |
| Composting in Schools | Includes information under: Why Composting? •Teacher's Page •Ideas for Student Research Projects •Compost Quiz •Science and Engineering •Composting Indoors •Composting Outdoors •Weird and Unusual Composting •Frequently Asked Questions •Glossary | Teacher Activities;Teacher Background |
| Comunidad Educativa de Castilla y Leon Kingdoms of Living Things -site in Spanis | Click-through explanations of the water cycle for students, as well as animations, games, and experiments. Content is in Spanish. | Student Online Activities;Worksheets |
| Cool the Earth | Cool The Earth is a ready-to-run program that educates K-8 students and their families about global warming and inspires them to take simple actions to reduce their carbon emissions. The program is successful because it’s fun and empowering for the kids, and their enthusiasm is contagious! Includes assemblies, website tools, lesson plans | Student Online Activities;Teacher Activities;Teacher Background |
| Curiosity Machine | Log in is required, but is free. Students can earn "badges." The Curiosity Machine hosts collection of exciting (and sometimes very challenging) experiments and projects designed for children, along with their parents, to encourage curiosity, creativity and persistence! 1. OBSERVEwatch videos of actual engineers and scientists talking to children about the inventions and projects they work on. 2. BUILDget ideas from the videos and create your very own invention. 3. SHAREshare your adventure photos and videos, sketches and thinking. | Student Background;Student Online Activities;Teacher Background |
| Dirty Water Project | Civil, chemical, and environmental engineers work together to develop new water treatment systems or to improve existing ones. In this activity, teams of students in grades 3 – 5 investigate different methods (aeration and filtering) for removing pollutants from water, then design and build their own water filters. | Teacher Activities |
| Earth Wind Map | This interactive map shows the current pattern of wind across the planet. With your cursor you can move the point of view around to see any point on the globe you prefer. Click on the word Earth in the lower left corner to get more info. | Student Online Activities |
| EEK! Environmental Education for Kids | This electronic magazine is for kids in grades 4-8. Surf around and learn more about the great outdoors. | Student Background;Student Online Activities;Teacher Activities;Teacher Background |
| Engineering Adventures | Engineering Everywhere is a FREE engineering curriculum for elementary level students. Choose from seven units with fun, hands-on engineering design challenges based on real events around the world | Student Background;Student Online Activities;Student Videos;Teacher Activities;Teacher Background;Teacher Videos |
| EPA Ecosystems Teaching Resources | links to a wide variety of teaching resources; curriculum and lesson plans; on-line data projects, etc. | Student Background;Student Online Activities;Teacher Activities;Teacher Background |
| EPA Explorers Club | Natural resources activities and information. Fun and interesting activities, facts, and resources for kids and teachers about plants and animals, garbage and recycling, and the environment. | Student Background |
| EPA Kids Club - Recycling and garbage | (Site removed) | Student Background;Student Online Activities;Teacher Activities;Teacher Background |
| EPA Water Curriculum | Offers various water curriculum and water activities on drinking water, ecosystems, lakes, oceans, rivers, water pollution, watersheds. Activities and curriculum on conservation energy, environmental stewardship, natural resources, pollution prevention. drinking water, fish advisories, indoor air, lead, ozone depletion, pesticides, radon, smog, garbage, household, hazardous & solid waste, landfills, superfund cleanups, trash. Has a kids page. | Student Background;Teacher Activities;Teacher Background |
| ESA Kids | ESA Kids has tons of fun activities, neat lab and art activities, and interesting facts for students to explore. There is also a great vocabulary index and some news bulletins so students and teachers can stay up-to-date with new space discoveries. | Student Background;Student Online Activities |
| Explaining climate change science & rebutting global warming misinformation | Scientific skepticism is healthy. Scientists should always challenge themselves to improve their understanding. Yet this isn't what happens with climate change denial. Skeptics vigorously criticise any evidence that supports man-made global warming and yet embrace any argument, op-ed, blog or study that purports to refute global warming. This website gets skeptical about global warming skepticism. Do their arguments have any scientific basis? What does the peer reviewed scientific literature say? | Student Background;Teacher Activities;Teacher Background |
| Eyes on Exoplanets App | Get set for launch. “Eyes on Exoplanets” will fly you to any planet you wish—as long as it's far beyond our solar system. This fully rendered 3D universe is scientifically accurate, allowing you to zoom in for a close look at more than 1,000 exotic planets known to orbit distant stars. With the click of a mouse, you can visit newly discovered gas giants, Earth-sized planets and “super Earths”—rocky like ours, but gargantuan. The program is updated daily with the latest finds from NASA's Kepler mission and from ground-based observatories around the world as they hunt for planets like our own. You can instantly find out the time it would take to travel to each planetary system by car, jet plane, bullet train or starship. Use an overlay to compare the orbits of planets in our solar system with those around other stars. Or you can search for planets that might support life by toggling the “habitable zone” display, showing the region around a star where temperatures are right for liquid water. | Student Background;Student Online Activities;Student Videos;Teacher Background |
| Forces Can Push or Pull - Song by Jack Hartmann | Forces Can Push or Pull. Your children will learn the most important science fundamentals about forces in this super catchy science song. This song for kids about forces teaches children that a force either pushes or pulls and forces make things move. The video shows many kid-friendly examples of forces and how they push or pull things in the environment. Children push in their chairs in a classroom, pull in a game of tug-of-war, a kite is pushed by the wind to make it fly, children push and pull playground toys. All of these examples are clearly shown on this video with both audio and video telling the children if the force is a push or pull. Forces Can Push or Pull will help children clearly see how forces move things all around them. After seeing this song and video in force, teachers and parents can extend learning about science by observing all different movements in their home and school environment and decide it’s a push and pull. | Student Videos |
| Funderstanding Roller Coaster | Build your own rolller coaster while learning about all the different forces that go into creating a roller coaster | Student Background;Student Online Activities;Teacher Background |
| Gamequarium: Force and Motion | This site has video links (to Youtube) for lots of different science topics. It also has lots of advertisements in the pages. Good reference for finding videos. Then we suggest you bookmark the YouTube url so that you can find it again with fewer ads to look at while students are present. | Student Videos;Teacher Background;Teacher Videos |
| Green Schoolyard Resource Directory | Green Schoolyard Resource Directory for the San Francisco Bay Area For schools, parents, teachers, students, designers, and community members in San Francisco and around the Bay Area. | Teacher Background |
| Growing Minds - Farm to School | This site has a nice selection of activities and resources about how to create and use a school garden and its bounty | Student Background;Teacher Activities;Teacher Background |
| How to Build and Launch a Foam Rocket | In NASA's "Foam Rocket" activity, students build rubber-band-powered rockets and launch them at various angles to learn about rocket stability and trajectory. This lesson provides students with an excellent hands-on perspective on key mathematical concepts as well as data analysis and reasoning. | Teacher Activities;Teacher Background |
| How to Create a Zero Waste Classroom | Students need adult models and they need to be empowered to make the choices and ask the questions that help them find solutions. Start the conversation on day one and use it as a lens for all you do and use. Ask simply, “How can we consume less? Where and how can we reuse more?” For students, the experience of a Zero Waste classroom is a real and empowering step towards approaching the greater environmental challenges of plastic pollution and climate change; students learn that their choices do matter. Use math to help them understand the compounded impact. i.e. One classroom uses 100 less pencils, there are 22 classrooms in our school, there are 30 schools in our district, etc. | Teacher Activities;Teacher Background;Teacher Videos |
| How to Predict the Weather by Reading Clouds - Video | 5:18 Video with some basics on how to read weather maps, but more on cloud types, what they look like and what they mean. At about minute 4:40 it becomes a commercial for his build your own boat website, but you can stop video before that begins. | Student Videos;Teacher Background;Teacher Videos |
| How to Read a Weather Chart | Nice summary of how to read a weather chart | Student Background;Teacher Background |
| How to Read a Weather Maps | Nice in depth but easy to understand description of how to read weather maps. Comes from a weather service in New Zealand. | Teacher Background |
| How to Read a Weather Maps - Video | 5:15 Nice description of how to read weather maps. Narrator has a non-American accent | Student Videos;Teacher Background;Teacher Videos |
| HowToSmile.org | SMILE is a collection of educational materials on the web – all designed especially for those who teach school-aged kids in non-classroom settings. SMILE is a group of science museums dedicated to bringing science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) out of the academic cloister and into the wider world. All organizations are resource hubs for educational programs that involve people of all ages and backgrounds. | Teacher Activities;Teacher Background;Teacher Videos |
| ISS EarthKam | Middle-school educator can register for the ISS EarthKAM Community, but all educators can take advantage of the map images and resources online. ISS EarthKAM is a NASA-sponsored program that provides stunning, high quality photographs of our planet taken from the Space Shuttle and International Space Station. The Students page contains a Resources link that allows kids to learn about the International Space Station, Orbital Mechanics, Maps, the Space Shuttle, and Weather, and the Challengers link provides an opportunity to test the knowledge learned. Other links on the page include activities such as games and quizzes, as well as all information needed to get your own school involved in the mission. | Student Background;Student Online Activities;Teacher Background |
| Kid's Earth Science Enterprise | Kids can learn about earth, land, water, and natural hazards and learn how NASA studies these different topics. | Student Background;Student Online Activities;Teacher Background |
| Knowing Your World | Lessons and activities designed for 4th and 5th graders to learn about acid rain, global warming, water resources and other environmental topics. | Student Background;Student Online Activities;Teacher Activities;Teacher Background |
| Lab4Physics | Lab4Physics is a mobile APP especially created for Physics teachers and students that allows them to use smartphones and tablets as lab instruments. This tool will help students experiment and develop new skills. Speedometer, Accelerometer, Sound. FREE | Teacher Activities;App |
| Magic Schoolbus - Wet All Over | Join Ms. Frizzle for fun activities about the water cycle and water purification. Explore the site for more fun activities! | Student Videos;Teacher Videos |
| Magnet Lesson Plans | A list of lesson plans for teaching about magnets. | Teacher Activities |
| MinutePhyscis | This YouTube Channel has a great assortment of short videos showing all things physical. Fun and Eduational | Student Videos;Teacher Videos;Teacher Blogs |
| MinutePhyscis: Magnets: How do they work? | 6:25 minutes long. Why do magnets work. Some of it higher than elementary level, but still engaging and give great background info for the kids who are ready for more. | Student Background;Student Videos;Teacher Background;Teacher Videos |
| MinutePhyscis: The Tides | 1:58 minutes long. Why do we have tides? | Student Videos;Teacher Videos;Teacher Blogs |
| Moon Phase Calendars | This web page has links to moon phase calculators and many more moon resources. | Student Background;Teacher Background |
| My Garbology | Website is designed Naturebridge to introduce the ins and outs or recycling and composting. Online games for students and lesson ideas for teachers | Student Background;Student Online Activities;Teacher Activities |
| NASA STEM Engagement | An Aeronautic and Space Resource for Education including The Library, which is your guide to NASA's Internet resources with hundreds of subject oriented pages and the capability to search all of NASA; Educator Focus; and Cool Links. Many lithograph images online of the moon, planets, satellites, and space exploration! | Student Online Activities;Teacher Activities;Teacher Background |
| NASA Wavelength | NASA Wavelength is your pathway into a digital collection of Earth and space science resources for educators of all levels – from elementary to college, to out-of-school programs. Use NASA Wavelength to quickly and easily locate resources, connect them to other websites using atom feeds, and even share the resources you discover with others through social media and email. | Student Background;Teacher Activities;Teacher Background |
| Nature Lab | Nature Lab is The Nature Conservancy's youth curriculum platform. Nature is the fantastic factory that makes the building blocks of all our lives—food, drinking water, the stuff we own, and the air we breathe. That’s why The Nature Conservancy and its 550 scientists have created Nature Lab: to help students learn the science behind how nature works for us and how we can help keep it running strong. | Student Background;Student Videos;Teacher Activities;Teacher Background |
| NOVA's Earth system science collection | NOVA's Earth system science collection highlights important Earth processes normally invisible to the human eye. The standards-based media resources below expose the intricate web of forces that sustain life on Earth, allowing educators to explore the astonishing beauty and complexity of our dynamic planet with their students. For additional classroom resources, visit NOVA Labs http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/labs/ , a new digital platform where students can actively participate in the scientific process. NOVA Labs participants can take part in real-world investigations by visualizing, analyzing, and sharing the same data that scientists use. Try your hand at classifying clouds and investigating the role they play in severe tropical storms, research solar storms using images from NASA telescopes, or explore ways to make the most of renewable energy sources and use real data to design your own virtual power systems. | Student Background;Student Videos;Teacher Background;Teacher Videos |
| Ology - Biodiversity Everything Counts | Take a look at what common items are made from, the biodivesity of life in the city and the rainforest. | Student Background;Student Online Activities |
| Ology - Earth: Our World in Motion | join the Ologists at the American Museum of Natural History as they explore through on-line games and student content the ins and outs of how our earth is changing. Rocks, plate tectonics and more. | Student Background;Student Online Activities |
| Paper Plate Education "Serving the Universe on a Paper Plate" | This site has a lot of different activities about constellations, the solar system, moon phases, navigation using the stars and more all using paper plates. It has sections on how good or bad the pictures of moon cycles are in different children's literature | Teacher Activities;Teacher Background |
| Paper Plate Moon Phases | In this activity, students colour and cut cheap paper plates to form a handy reminder of the phases of the moon. | Teacher Activities |
| Paso Partners Bilingual Instruction | The resource is designed to help elementary school teachers organize their classrooms and instructional activities in order to increase achievement of Hispanic primary-grade children whose first language is not English. The guides offer a curriculum plan, instructional strategies and activities, suggested teacher and student materials, and assessment procedures. Bilingual lessons on Five Senses, Spiders, Dinosaurs, Plants & Seeds, Human Body, Health, Oceans, Weather, Matter, Sun & Stars, Sound, Simple Machines. | Teacher Activities;Teacher Background |
| PBS Design Squad Nation | The goal of Design Squad is to give students a stronger understanding of the design process, and the connection between engineering and the things we all use in everyday life. The results of engineering are all around us: from cars to cameras and everything in between. Design Squad Nation equips kids with science and math skills, inspires them, and lays the foundation they need to participate in engineering activities later in life. Use these Design Squad Nation resources to explore the world of science and engineering. | Teacher Activities;Teacher Background;Teacher Videos |
| Pendulum Painting | Here's a fun way to integrate art and science. Turn your pendulums into "paint brushes" and make some beautiful art work that can be sent home as presents to the family. | Teacher Activities |
| PhET simulations: Interactive Simulations for Science and Math | This site has lots of different simulations for many different science and math topics | Student Background;Student Online Activities;Teacher Activities;Teacher Background |
| Pinterest: Force and Motion Board | This Pinterest Board has a wide assortment of lesson ideas for a force and motion unit. | Teacher Activities;Teacher Background |
| Pizza Box Solar Oven | Instructions on how to make a pizza box solar oven. | Student Background;Teacher Activities;Teacher Background |
| Planet Families: Build a Solar System | Make your own solar system. Pick one or two stars and various size planets and see what happens. | Student Background;Student Online Activities;Teacher Background |
| Pocket Solar System | Students will build a quick model of the solar system by folding a piece of register tape to illustrate the relative distances between the orbits of the planets. Images in textbooks often depict the planets squeezed together, but this model shows how far apart they are, especially beyond Mars. Lesson courtesy of our friends from the Astronomical Society of the Pacific | Teacher Activities;Teacher Background |
| Practical Uses of Math and Science (PUMAS) | The PUMAS examples are aimed primarily at helping pre-college teachers enrich their presentation of topics in math and science. You may find a number of examples that relate to your area of interest, perhaps written in different styles, and possibly taking different approaches to the material. There may also be comments/lesson plans filed with some of the examples, written by previous users. Use these examples as a resource -- Select, adapt, recontextualize, and present the material to your students in a way that you judge will best meet your students' needs, abilities, and interests. | Teacher Activities;Teacher Background |
| Predicting Weather - NASA Connect Video | 5:53 NASA Connect segment explaining how scientists use satellites to predict weather. The segment explores the Afternoon Constellation, or the collection of satellites known as the 'A' Train as well as weather balloons, weather stations and local weather observers. | Student Videos;Teacher Background;Teacher Videos |
| Project NEED | The National Energy Education Department (NEED) provides curriculum guides and activities online and helpful energy saving information. Look for the curriculum guide for teaching Greek Mythology and the Forms of Energy and an energy songbook. Kids information on energy and links to other energy websites. | Teacher Activities;Teacher Background |
| Project WET Water Festival | The site features an online water festival that consists of structured learning stations and exhibits. Station topics include the hydrologic cycle, ground water, and spring water, in addition to water quality, water conservation, and properties of water. In sample learning stations, students investigate how much water is available on our planet as they solve multiple choice questions, and watch the water cycle in action through a colorful computer animation. A text version of the activities can be downloaded and printed out. | Student Online Activities;Teacher Activities |
| Recycling lesson plans and resources - The Teachers Guide | This web page has numberous links to websites that involve recycling. It has lesson plans and links to recycling resources. | Student Background;Teacher Activities;Teacher Background |
| San Francisco Bay Lesson Guides | These guides provide a valuable resource for teaching about the San Francisco Bay and its watershed in your classroom. Discover new ideas for teaching students about everything from salmon to climate change to the Farallon Islands. Each guide contains multiple lesson plans focused on local animals and ecosystems and is aligned to state standards, including the Common Core and the Next Generation Science Standards.With twelve guides spanning multiple grade levels and a variety topics, you can be sure to find lesson ideas to support your classroom curriculum. | Teacher Activities |
| Scholastic: Study Jams | This short animated video clips are nice introductions or reviews to different science topics. Each general area has about 10 supporting videos. *Plants, *Animals, *Human Body, *Ecosystems, * Landforms, Rocks and Minerals *Weather, Climate *Solar System *Matter *Force and Motion *Energy, Light and Sound (includes electricity and magnetism) *Scientific Inquiry | Student Background;Student Videos |
| Science Education Gateway | A collection of online student activities and printable lessons with teacher tools to help build unique lessons. The SEGway is designed to help each user create their own custom collection of SEGway resources. The Grab Bag holds supplemental resources for your science lesson like related images, illustrations, quizzes and games, movies, image data and maps, and projects. | Student Online Activities;Teacher Activities;Teacher Background |
| Science for Kids - Physics | The Physics page on Science for Kids has games, experiments, images, videos, facts, lessons and activities on subjects such as electricity, magnetism, force and motion | Student Background;Student Online Activities;Student Videos;Teacher Activities;Teacher Background;Teacher Videos |
| Science Toys | Make toys with common household materials including electromagnets, motors, radios, rockets, kaleidoscopes, and more. | Teacher Activities;Teacher Background |
| Science@NASA | This page, from Science at NASA, offers updated information and recent articles about new scientific discoveries related to space.
For website in spanish: | Student Background;Teacher Background |
| SlideShare: Force and Motion | This power point like presentation is a review of a Force and Motion Lesson. Embedded in the slide deck are links to short videos | Student Background;Student Online Activities;Student Videos;Teacher Activities;Teacher Background;Teacher Videos |
| SMILE Program of Biology Lesson Resources | Teachers participating in the SMILE (Science and Mathematics Initiative for Learning Enhancement) summer session programs each create a single concept lesson plan. Caution: Since there is a wide number of authors who have contributed to the database, the detail and quality of the lesson plans will vary. | Teacher Activities;Teacher Background |
| SMILE Program Physics Lesson Plans | This webpage has over 200 physics lesson plans. All are single concept lesson plans | Teacher Activities;Teacher Background |
| Solar Cooking | Anything and everything you could ever want to know about solar cooking. :Lots of different kinds of plans. Try to few to see which works best. | Student Background;Student Online Activities;Teacher Activities;Teacher Background |
| Solar Energy International | This site provides nice information and a background to solar energy. Many links to other sites that specialize in different aspects of energy production or use. | Student Background;Teacher Background |
| Solarviews.com | This website is available in English, Spanish, French, Porteguese and German. It offers photos and content for the solar system in all these languages. | Student Background;Teacher Background |
| Space Place | The Web site and its new Spanish companion at http://spaceplace.jpl.nasa.gov/espanol serve children 8 to 13 years of age. The site contains approximately 40 activities, including games and "amazing facts" about space, Earth and NASA. Areas easy to navigate in, include animations and great illustrations. Kids can Make Spacey Things, Do Spacey Things, see Space Science in Action, read Dr. Marc's Amazing Facts, and share with friends. | Student Background;Student Online Activities;Teacher Activities |
| SpaceWeather.com | News and information about the Sun-Earth environment. You can find information on solar wind and bursts and flares. Lots of pictures and information on current conditions. | Student Background;Teacher Background |
| Spark - Weather and Atmospheric Science Classroom Activities | Website includes K-12 classroom activities for the following topics: Weather, Climate Change, Sun-Earth Connections, and Atmosphere and Chemistry. Spark engages people in the wonder and relevance of science. We focus on scientific literacy, workforce development, and community engagement. | Student Background;Student Online Activities;Teacher Activities;Teacher Background;Teacher Videos;Worksheets |
| Star Fall | Players learn that they can determine a star's relative temperature by its color. Students will collect groups of stars to earn points and develop problem-solving skills, as they determine how to gain the most points. | Student Online Activities |
| Stardate - Moon Phases | This page contains a moon phase calendar, information about tides and other common questions about the moon. | Student Background;Teacher Background |
| StarDate Online | Teacher lessons and activities are available online, as well as a solar system and constellation guide and image gallery. The daily two minute radio script is available in Spanish and English. Information is available on a wide range of astronomy related topics. Weekly night sky updates, sky maps and information on special celestial events is updated regularly. For spanish- click bottom right corner. | Teacher Activities;Teacher Background |
| StopWaste.org | Any Alameda County teacher can order a FREE 4-R's teaching kit, and browse the website for more teaching ideas and resources | Teacher Background |
| Super Storm Sandy Weather Images - Science Friday | An in depth look at satelite images of Super Storm Sandy that hit the East Coast of the US in October 2012. | Student Videos |
| Teacher Resource Guide to Agriculture issues | Search the guide on-line or order your free copy. Has resources on all sorts of things related to agriculture. How to grow plants and animals and how farming is related to nutrition and habitat health | Teacher Activities;Teacher Background |
| The Adventures of Herman | Has audio in both English and Spanish that allows the site to be used by younger students. Squirmin' Herman the Worm teaches students all about worms and how to make their own worm bin in this new interactive curriculum. The Teacher guide section of the website has good ideas about activities with insects for the classroom | Student Background;Student Online Activities;Teacher Activities;Teacher Background |
| The Catapult Project | Join 7th grade integrated science and math teacher Zara Acosta as she leads her students through a 6-week catapult design project. Students learn about the laws of motion and forces, probability, and engineering design, and then apply these principles to design their own catapult. Multiple firings of the catapult the project give students practice with data analysis, with the goal of improving the catapult's accuracy. | Teacher Activities;Teacher Background;Teacher Videos |
| The Edible Schoolyard | This website from Martin Luther King, Jr. Middle School's Edible Schoolyard in Berkeley has ideas and links about how to start and use a school garden program | Teacher Activities;Teacher Background |
| The Exploratorium's Science of Sport | This website includes sections on the science of Baseball, Surfing, Cycling, skateboarding and hockey. Also includes articles on the use of hands and feet in sports and how they work. | Student Background;Teacher Background |
| The Forest Foundation | This website has lots of free resources for teachers and students when studying the forest habitats of California. Geared for grade 3+ but lots of good content for teachers of the younger grades. | Student Background;Student Online Activities;Teacher Background |
| The Groundwater Foundation | Website dedicated to informing the public about one of our greatest hidden resources, groundwater. The Kids Corner has lesson plans, activities, and links. Includes free resources. | Student Background;Teacher Activities;Teacher Background |
| The Reason for the Seasons | Lesson plan for 35 minutes activity demonstrating how the seasons occur on Earth | Teacher Activities |
| The Story of Stuff | This site has animated videos that take the viewer through the history of how stuff is made and what is done with it when it is finished being used in its original form. | Student Background;Student Online Activities;Teacher Background |
| Video: The Coralax | This film was created by students in Maui Huliau Foundation's Huliau Environmental Filmmaking Club. Inspired by Dr. Suess's The Lorax, this claymation by our new middle school students uses 667 images to show how irresponsible shoreline development can impact our precious reef ecosystem. | Student Videos;Teacher Videos |
| WatchKnowLearn.org | This website has free educational videos on all topics (including science) for all age levels. There is specifically a section for younger learners. | Student Background;Student Videos;Teacher Background;Teacher Videos |
| When Greenville Turned Brown | A small town called Greenville was a nice place to live, with forests and ponds, it had lots to give. The people were happy in this little town, until something happened and Greenville turned brown. A poem with accompanying illustrations that recounts a tale of how important clean natural resources are. | Student Background |
| Wind Map of the United States | Visualization of the current wind patterns across the US. Great for when wind events like hurricanes are happening. They also have a gallery of snap shots from past wind events | Student Background;Teacher Background |
| Windows to the Universe | Extensive website of all areas of earth science. Lots of nice images. Games, worksheets and puzzles. Some real data on atmospheric science. You can use the free version with advertizements scrolling at top or sgn up for membership with no advertizements | Student Background;Student Online Activities;Teacher Activities;Teacher Background |
| Wyland Ocean Challenge | An interdisciplinary art-science curriculum promoting conservation and stewardship through understanding adaptation and water cycle concepts. Downloadable activities and other interesting background information. Lesson resources are found in the right hand column of the main page. | Student Background;Teacher Activities;Teacher Background |
| Your Sky on the Web | An online interactive planetarium. Users can produce sky maps for any time, date, and viewing location and check out a virtual telescope. If you enter the orbital elements of an asteroid or comet, Your Sky will compute its current position and plot it on the map. Each map is accompanied by an ephemeris for the Sun, Moon, planets, and any tracked asteroid or comet. | Student Background;Teacher Activities;Teacher Background |
| YouTube for Teachers | YouTube for teachers is designed with playlists for your classroom or search for specific topics. | Student Videos;Teacher Background;Teacher Videos |
| Zoom: Pendulums | This website has several online games and some do at home/school activities about pendulums. | Student Background;Student Online Activities;Teacher Activities |