Annora Brown Postage Stamp

This series of lessons provides an overview of what is a postage stamp and its history within Canada. Students then learn about the life and art of the Alberta artist Annora Brown. Nearly 200 of her wildflower paintings are held by the Glenbow Museum in Calgary.Once students know more about stamps and the art of Annora Brown, they may create their own postage stamps. Secondly, they learn about writing persuasive letters and are asked to write to the Canada Post Office requesting a series of stamps based on the wildflower paintings of Annora Brown.

Material Type: Lesson Plan

Authors: Connie Blomgren, Emily Metherel

3-D Model of the Big Dipper

Students see firsthand that stars and constellations are not arranged in a flat, 2-D pattern in this Moveable Museum unit. The five-page PDF guide includes suggested general background readings for educators, activity notes, step-by-step directions, and a Big Dipper map. Students make their own 3-D models of the Big Dipper using readily available materials and examine their models, observing the 3-D constellation from new perspectives.

Material Type: Activity/Lab

Movement of Constellations in the Night Sky

In this lesson, students will examine time lapse photos and videos to see the movement of stars during the night. Students will use star wheels to track the visibility of constellations throughout the year and graph the number of days a constellation is visible each month. Using data from the graphs, they will collaboratively construct a large-scale model of the sun, Earth, and constellations to better understand the role Earth's movement and axial tilt play in the visibility of stars. Finally, students will draw a diagram and write an explanation of the apparent movement of stars using data from the graphs and class model. This lesson results from the ALEX Resource Gap Project.

Material Type: Lesson Plan

Earth in Motion: Seasons

This interactive activity from the Adler Planetarium explains the reasons for the seasons. Featured is a game in which Earth must be properly placed in its orbit in order to send Max, the host, to different parts of the world during particular seasons.

Material Type: Activity/Lab, Diagram/Illustration, Interactive, Simulation

Authors: National Science Foundation, WGBH Educational Foundation

Solar Observations

This is an activity involving observations of the Sun. Learners use pinhole cameras, solar telescopes, and/or solar viewing glasses to make solar observations, draw what they see, and identify sunspots, if they are present. Then, learners go online and compare their drawings to images obtained by the SOHO spacecraft. This activity requires the use a sunny outdoor location. This activity also require use of safe methods for observing the Sun, such as pinhole cameras, telescopes with proper solar filters attached, and/or viewing glasses that are designated for safe solar viewing. No one should look at the Sun unless one or more of these methods is used in a proper fashion.

Material Type: Activity/Lab, Lesson Plan

Sun, Earth and Moon Model

Students build a model of the Sun-Earth-Moon system, exploring how the Moon revolves around the Earth, and the Earth around the Sun. Students play a memory game and learn some characteristics about the three objects.

Material Type: Activity/Lab, Game

How Big Were Dinosaurs?

In this classroom activity, young students compare their feet to the foot of a large Apatosaur. The activity opens with background information for teachers about the enormous size range of dinosaurs. After using personal references to describe the size of dinosaurs, students examine the outline of an Apatosaur footprint. Students then estimate how many of their footprints would fit inside the Apatosaur footprint and conduct an experiment to test their estimate.

Material Type: Activity/Lab, Lesson Plan

Dinosaur Storytime

This is a storytime for children's ages 3-6 years old, including a book list, songs, fingerplays, and craft ideas. This for librarians, childcare providers, early educators, and parents to use.

Material Type: Lesson Plan

Author: Kate Currie

Ten More Little Words

In this video segment from Between the Lions, a large dinosaur puppet teaches a class of monkeys about ten little words through a song. These words promote reading fluency and include: I, he, they, with, was, his, are, on, as, and for. This video segment provides a resource for Fluency and Phonological Awareness. ***Access to Teacher's Domain content now requires free login to PBS Learning Media.

Material Type: Lecture