Here you have several web enhanced ready-to-use Elementary and Middle school grade level curriculum modules. Topics include the chemical, physical and biological sciences. Created by a group of Minnesota teachers, edited by Douglas Allchin, under the sponsorship of SciMathMN and The Bakken Museum.

Elementary School Modules:

• Chemical and Human Resources, Part I

  Third grade students study mystery powders to understand physical and chemical properties and their changes, while learning about the chemists who first made those discoveries historically.
  

• Chemical and Human Resources, Part II

  In the fourth, fifth and sixth grade, students research these historical chemists in more depth, enacting them in vignettes, and teaching their findings to the third graders.

   

Middle School Modules:

• A Lesson to Dye For

  Plant dyes allow you to integrate student investigations, history and art. Students learn about the interaction of controlled experiments and trial-and-error while exploring different plant sources, fibers, colors, mordants, and large scale dyeing. They then use their dyed products in various creative handcraft projects, such as basic stitchery. They can also learn about the important historical, geographical and economic roles of dyes, such as indigo, and can role-play an important woman of Colonial times who introduced it to the U.S.

• Sucking Students Into an Understanding of Air Pressure and Vacuums

  Help students to understand vacuums and the effects of air pressure by guiding them through investigations of phenomena that initiated important discoveries about air pressure in the 17th century.

• Faraday's Candle Observations

  Recording observations of a candle has been a long-time favorite exercise for teaching about the nature of observation--but not everyone knows that it was introduced over one hundred years ago by Michael Faraday. Here, some of the details of Faraday's life, his approaches to science and education add new life to this favorite exercise.

Physical Science

• Time and Space Across Time and Space

  Encourage students to think about the concepts of time and space by seeing how they have been viewed at different times in history and in different cultures--including Nigeria.

Chemistry

• The Mendeleev Puzzle: Not So Simple as it Seems

  Dmitri Mendeleev's triumphant discovery of the structure of periodicity is well known. This exercise reveals a bit more of the process of science by challenging students to detect patterns even when everything is not perfectly organized.

• Polymers and Serendipity

  Teach about the most common molecules in our lives as a way to introduce organic chemistry into your standard chemistry course. Include demonstrations showing how easy they can be to make. The stories of their original discovery also help convey an important feature of the process of science: the pursuit of "accidental" discoveries.

Biology

• Points East and West

  Western studies of the centuries-old Chinese practice of acupuncture offer an opportunity to discuss both controlled experiments and the cultural contexts of scientific method.