If you’re looking for some hands-on activities to study earth and life science, head out to a garden. It’s a living lab that affords all kinds of opportunities to observe science concepts in the natural world, such as:
interdependence in an environment
life cycles and changes
adaptations and biodiversity
human impact on the environment.
While in the field, kids get a chance to be the scientists by asking questions, making observations, and coming up with explanations for what they see based on evidence. They can define problems they may encounter in a garden (eg. a plant-damaging pest), and gather additional information to brainstorm solutions.
For an idea of the kinds of investigations that can be done in a garden, visit LifeLab, a Santa Cruz-based non-profit organization that hosts field trips and summer camps at their garden classroom. Or go online to download their free garden exploration unitsfor grades 1 - 4. Each unit - Pondering Plants, Soil Stories, Garden Pollinators, and Garden Habitats - includes six lessons.
Additional free resources available at the LifeLab site:
Nature Works Everywhere has a variety of free gardening lesson plans and videos, including, How Dirt Works, and activity guides on Habitats, Living Systems, Soil, Water, Food and Carbon, and others. These guides and others can be found on their Resources page.
McGraw-Hill Science, 2002Activity worksheets (graphic organizers, fill-in exercises, etc.) that can be downloaded for the matching K - 6 textbook.(When you visit the link, if you come to a username and password box, type in "technology" for both).
Thunderbolt Kids: Features grades 4 - 6 science and technology lessons that can be viewed online, or you can download here the books (which match the online material and include questions and activities), the teachers' guides (which contain answer keys and teacher notes, and corresponding science adventure comic books.
Earth Science Concepts for Middle School: CK-12 Flexbook with 14 chapters covering: earth’s features, rocks and minerals, plate tectonics, water, atmosphere, weather and climate, landforms, natural resources, the solar system and beyond.
High School Earth Science: CK-12 Flexbook with 26 chapters on earth and space science, plus a glossary.
Earth Science Illustrated Guide:Contains maps, charts, graphs and diagrams, with associated explanations, illustrating key earth science and space concepts. There’s a glossary at the end. This download has 209 pages.
Earth Science Lessons for middle school from Oregon State University. Covers plate tectonics, earthquakes and volcanoes, rocks and minerals.
Earth Revealed: Series of 26 half-hour videos on geology; for high school students.
Activities:
Inside the Earth Webquest: Guide to various sites to gather information and fill out a Google document on earth’s layers, convection currents, drifting continents, sea floor spreading, and plate tectonics.
Geology Lab Online: Several online activities for learning about earthquake epicenters, how geologists and archaeologists date rocks and ancient artifacts, and river processes.
Earth Science Paper Models: Cut out and assemble 3-D models of volcanoes, landforms, fossils, planets, and other things related to earth science.
101 Earth Science Demos:Demonstrate concepts using just a few everyday items. The objective of the demo, procedure to follow, and science behind the demo is described. Five sections include geosphere, atmosphere, hydroshpere, space, and miscellaneous. This download has 106 pages.
Weather Proverbs: Examine weather proverbs to determine their meaning, and the scientific principles they're based on.
Earth Guide: How is the earth different from other planets? Where does the sky become space? These and other questions are answered in a series of interesting animations.
