Browse lesson plans

Rain forest animal movement

Kindergarten students are naturally curious about a variety of animals. In this lesson, students explore the rain forest through books and online videos. Students will observe the movement of animals and then participate in imitation movements. They will then use nonstandard measurement to identify and record the length they moved.

Format: lesson plan (grade K Mathematics and Science)

By Star Davis.

Savor the rainbow

Use skittles to help the students practice the concepts of sorting data, recording data, writing the data collected in fraction form (part/whole), changing the fractions into decimals and percents, and taking the data collected and making a spreadsheet, bar graph, and circle graph of the data.

Format: lesson plan (grade 7 Mathematics)

By Beverly Revis.

See how they run!: The 100 meter dash

Middle level students will collect times as they run the 100 meter dash. These times will be depicted through various graphic representations (bar, circle, histogram). Times will be compared to current world records for the 100 meters. Students will decide which Math class ran fastest and support that choice in short essay form. They will also try to determine the faster gender based on the data collected.

This lesson plan is a unit filled with related lesson plans. One or two parts of this project could be completed as a stand-alone lesson, or the entire set of activities and extensions could be completed for an involved, integrated unit.

Format: lesson plan (grade 6–8 Mathematics)

By Holly Smith.

Solid graphing

The students will review solid figures using a baggie of assorted snack mix (cones, cubes, cylinders, and spheres) and will begin a vertical bar graph showing the number of each solid figure in a bag of assorted snack mix.

Format: lesson plan (grade 2–3 Mathematics)

By Lisa Fletcher.

Soup's on!

This lesson integrates children's literature and math. The students will listen to "Stone Soup" by Marcia Brown and bring items from home to make "First Grade Soup." The children will use the items to create a graph and share information about their graphs.

Format: lesson plan (grade K–1 English Language Arts and Mathematics)

By Vicki Rivenbark.

Space Shuttle O-ring failure

Students will use a TI82 or TI83 calculator to construct a scatterplot, find the equation of the least-squares regression line for a set of data, find the coefficient of determination, and make predictions by using the line.

Format: lesson plan (grade 9–12 Mathematics)

By Brenda Goforth.

Statistics project

Students collect numeric and non-numeric data. They are then expected to use the data collected to construct different types of graphs as well as finding central tendencies.

Format: lesson plan (grade 5–8 Mathematics)

By Audrea Saunders.

Stem and leaf hop

The students will measure and record the length of their jumps. The lengths will be used to create a class stem and leaf plot.

Format: lesson plan (grade 4–6 Mathematics)

By Kathy Sellers.

Supermarket sweep: Day 2

Students will participate in a supermarket game and follow a shopping list. Students will compare the quantity of items “purchased” and graph results. Students will also learn a song about shopping in a supermarket.

Format: lesson plan (grade K–1 English Language Development and Mathematics)

By Angela Hunt and Melody Holmes.

Taking a stride in graphing

This lesson provides hands-on activities for students to use real-life experiences and apply them to graphing.

Format: lesson plan (grade 2–4 Mathematics)

By Sandy Brooks.

Three Little Kittens

Students will experience the joys of acting out the story using simple props. Students will enjoy eating pie, and completing a bubble map and class graph.

Format: lesson plan (grade K English Language Arts, Mathematics, and Theater Arts Education)

By Amanda Mcalpine, Carol Elliott, and Ginny Devine.

To be or not to be... linear

The student will determine the correlation between two variables. They will graph ordered pairs on a coordinate plane, determine a best fit line, find slope and intercepts, and write the equation of a line. This lesson plan is geared for both 8th grade math and algebra.

Format: lesson plan (grade 8–12 Mathematics)

By Kyle Gorton.

Understanding data mining: Extracting, organizing, and analyzing large sets of data

Mathematics students in grades nine through twelve will be able to extract useful information from large sets of data that represent multiple disciplines. Using these real-world applications, students will analyze data and use their findings to make predictions and to provide solutions to problems.

Format: lesson plan (multiple pages)

Using percent of change to measure growth in North Carolina

Students will work in small groups to use the internet to gather data on the population growth for each of the 100 counties in North Carolina from 1992 to 1995. From these data, students will find the percent of increase/decrease for the counties they have been assigned. As a follow-up, the students will enter their data into a computer spreadsheet and from that spreadsheet, produce graphs of the information.

Format: lesson plan (grade 7–8 Information Skills, Mathematics, and Social Studies)

By Wanda Washburn.

Water, water everywhere...

This is a good beginning of the year lesson to review fractions, decimals, geometry (the number of degrees in a circle and drawing a circle with a protractor), graphing, and metric measurement. This lesson is a good way for students to meet their peers while working cooperatively in a task-oriented group. The watermelon you will be using for the activity is also a good start-of-the-year treat. Be sure to get an extra watermelon or two to share at the end of the activity.

Format: lesson plan (grade 6 Mathematics)

By Jayne Brown.

Working with parabolas

In CareerStart lessons: Grade eight, page 2.3

In this lesson, students graph a quadratic equation to find a solution to a hypothetical scenario involving event planners.

Format: lesson plan (grade 9 Mathematics and Science)

By Debbie Brooks, Peggy Dickey, and Jan Sullivan.

Resources on the web

EHP Science Education

Environmental Science lesson plans and corresponding professional articles are provided free of charge for high school teachers to use in their classrooms. (Learn more)

Format: website/lesson plan

Provided by: National Institute of Environmental Health