Essential Science for Teachers: Life Science - Animal Life Cycles
One characteristic of all life forms is a life cycle-from reproduction in one generation to reproduction in the next. This session introduces life cycles by focusing on continuity of life in the animal kingdom. In addition to considering what aspects of life cycles can be observed directly, the underlying role of DNA as the hereditary material is explored.
Essential Science for Teachers: Life Science - Plant Life Cycles
What is a plant? One distinguishing feature of members of the plant kingdom is their life cycle. In this session, flowering plants serve as examples for studying the plant life cycle by considering the roles of seeds, flowers, and fruits. A comparison to animal life cycles reveals some surprising similarities and intriguing differences.
Essential Science for Teachers: Life Science - Variation, Adaptation, and Natural Selection
What causes variation within a population of living things? How can variation in one generation influence the next generation? In this session, variation in a population will be examined as the "raw material" upon which natural selection acts.
Essential Science for Teachers: Life Science - Evolution and the Tree of Life
Why are there so many different kinds of living things? Comparing species that exist today reveals a lot about their relationships to one another and provides evidence of common origins. This session explores the theory of evolution: change in species over time.
Essential Science for Teachers: Life Science - Energy Flow in Communities
Communities are populations of organisms that live and interact together. The structure of a community is defined by food web interactions. The process of energy flow is the focus of this session as the interactions between producers, consumers, and decomposers are examined.
Essential Science for Teachers: Life Science - Material Cycles in Ecosystems
Studying an ecosystem involves looking at interactions between living things as well as the nonliving environment that surrounds them. Life depends upon the nonliving world for habitat, as well as energy and materials. In this session, material cycles will be explored as critical processes that sustain life in an ecosystem.
Science in Focus: Energy - What is Energy?
Interviews about energy with children, scientists, and people on the street reveal the wide range of concepts that teachers encounter. In this session, you will look at the differences between the everyday language of energy and the scientific concept, see highlights of its history, and learn its importance in our understanding of the world.
Science in Focus: Energy - Force and Work
Scientists define energy as the ability to do work. In this session, see how work is defined in physics and examine how energy and work are related.
Science in Focus: Energy - Transfer and Conversion of Energy
Change happens when energy is transferred or converted. In this session, examine conversion between potential and kinetic energy. Through examples, see how events that involve a small amount of energy can trigger much larger events.
Science in Focus: Energy - Energy in Cycles
Energy can be seen in cycles every day, from the bouncing of balls to the swinging of pendulums. In this session, further explore the relationship between kinetic and potential energy to understand how cycles begin and are sustained, and why they decay.