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Book Chapter
STEM Education in the Middle School Classroom
In this chapter, find out how STEM lessons were first incorporated into a sixth-grade classroom in the Lebanon Special School District, a small community in Middle Tennessee. These students never gave much thought to careers in the STEM field. When c...
Book Chapter
Have you ever rubbed a balloon on your clothes or your hair? What happened? Perhaps you noticed that the balloon somehow made your hair stand up. Maybe you could then stick the balloon to a wall or a ceiling. This phenomenon is called static electri...
Book Chapter
Matter and Energy in Organisms and Ecosystems
The big idea for an area of study that challenges students year after year but yet is essential to life processes is the relationship between matter and energy—how we get and use energy for life. If we put a phrase to this, it is all about cellular...
Book Chapter
Next Time You See a Maple Seed sample
The Next Time You See books are not meant to present facts to be memorized. They are written to inspire a sense of wonder about nature and foster a desire to learn more about the natural world. In this free sample chapter from the Next Time You See a...
Book Chapter
Phenomenon-based learning (PBL) is built on observations of real-world phenomena. PBL is not so much a teaching method as it is a route to grasping the big picture and is an approach that is fun and interesting for both teachers and students. In this...
Book Chapter
Friction is very common and experienced every day. It is a force that pushes on things and that you notice when two objects’ surfaces are in contact with each other. Air resistance is a force that occurs because moving objects hit the air in front ...
Book Chapter
There is always a force between the Earth and other masses. This force is called gravity or gravitation. Gravity affects all objects on Earth. It doesn’t matter if they are on the ground or in the air. In this chapter, the experiments focus on how ...
Book Chapter
Gravity pulls the air molecules toward the ground, and the molecules push on the ground. This pushing is called air pressure or atmospheric pressure. In this chapter’s experiments, students will learn about air pressure and the meaning of terms suc...
Book Chapter
All electrical gadgets and gizmos need an electric current to work. To make it easier to learn about and make circuits, you will need to know the symbols for some components. In this chapter, you will learn about these symbols and then plan and build...
Book Chapter
A magnet attracts objects made of iron and this phenomenon called magnetism has many uses. In this chapter, you will explore and experiment with magnetism in different ways, including bar magnet, magnetic field, magnetic globe, and electromagnet. Tea...
Book Chapter
Energy is everywhere in several different forms and can be moved from place to place in many ways. In these experiments, you will find out more about what energy is, how it can be transported, and how is it possible to transform energy to different f...
Book Chapter
In everyday life we often talk about pressure—high pressure and low pressure. We speak of the pressure in car tires, atmospheric pressure, pressure-sealed containers, pressure chambers, and so on. These are just a few of the ways we encounter press...
Book Chapter
Thermodynamics is the physics of heat, mechanical energy or work, and the conversion of one into the other. All systems follow the laws of thermodynamics and since almost all energy production is based on thermodynamics, it is important to understand...
Book Chapter
Energy is an essential part of all branches of physics. In mechanics, energy appears as both potential and kinetic energy. In this chapter, the experiments examine the conservation of energy and how energy can change from one type to another. Teacher...
Book Chapter
Color theory is an area of physics that can explain how the appearance of colors changes when colors are mixed, for example on a computer screen or with a printing press. Visible light can be divided into different ranges of wavelengths, which we see...