Students learn how orbits are created by a force pulling toward the center in this Moveable Museum unit, in which they build a paper model of a Space Shuttle. This activity simulates an object in orbit. A paper Space Shuttle is swung in a circle on a string. The string provides a pull toward the center of the orbit, simulating the force of gravity. The four-page PDF guide includes suggested background readings for educators, activity notes, and step-by-step directions with suggested discussion questions for older students.

This OLogy activity offers kids a fun way to use their astronomical knowledge to create a comic-book travel guide that blends science and fiction. The activity begins by telling kids that the best science fiction writers play with scientific facts to make a story more exciting. It then challenges them to write a travel guide for their favorite destination in space that will convince their Earthling pals to visit. To help inspire and direct kids, the activity includes examples of science fiction writing, simple directions, and a six-panel travel guide shell that's partially illustrated and includes prompts to help kids complete each panel.

In this Moveable Museum lesson plan, students examine cultural artifacts from three different nomadic cultures, first on their own, and then in contextual photographs, gaining insight into the work of anthropologists. The 13-page PDF guide has educator materials including background information, teacher strategies, assessment guidelines, and detailed notes about the curriculum standards addressed. The Everyday Objects activity worksheet has isolated photographs of three cultural artifacts, with information on their materials and size. The Objects in Context activity worksheet has photographs of each object with explanatory text (object name, culture, use, and significance). The Putting It All Together activity has a list of discussion questions to help students further investigate material culture.

This reference list has more than 25 books on biodiversity. For each title, the book's author, publisher, and publication date are given. The diverse list includes broad introductions to biodiversity, insightful looks at evolution and extinction, examinations of the partnership between insects and flowers, portraits of vanishing species and explorations of the factors contributing to a global biodiversity crisis.

This BioBulletin Web site takes a close look at the medicinal power of plants. The site includes text, videos, photographs, and interviews with key scientists. Age-Old Remedies discusses how nearly 80 percent of the world's population relies on medicines made from natural ingredients. The Power of Traditional Medicine takes an historical look at medicinal herbs and traditional healers. Bio-Prospectors Needed reports on the symposium "The Value of Plants, Animals, and Microbes to Human Health" that was held at the American Museum of Natural History. Tracking Down a Power Plant tells the story of a tree in the Sarawak rain forest that contains a possible cure for AIDS.

This winning entry in the museum's Young Naturalist Awards 2001 by Amber, a 17 year old student from Iowa, studies tardigrades in the U.S. and Antarctica. Her essay details her field study in Missouri, which compared the diversity, distribution, and abundance of tardigrades both upwind and downwind from the James River power plant and an account of the 10 days she spent in Greenland with international tardigradologists, during which she found a rare occurrence in tardigrade behavior.

It probably comes as no surprise that telescopes do a better job of collecting light and observing outer space than your eyes. But do you know why? (Hint: the answer is NOT magnification!) This Moveable Museum article, available as a nine-page printable PDF file, offers a thorough, kid-friendly look at telescopes. It discusses how different types of telescopes work and provides some suggested additional resources for further research.

In this hands-on OLogy activity, kids learn what happens when the rush of freshwater from a river collides with the gush of the ocean's tides. The activity begins with introductions to estuaries, salinity, and density. The illustrated, step-by-step directions show how to test the density of water at different levels of salinity and then investigate how a liquid's density affects the objects placed in it. It includes a fun look at the Dead Sea (Super Salty Sea) and why you can float effortlessly in it.

This OLogy activity uses the traditional Japanese art of paper-folding to help kids understand dimensions. The activity begins with a brief introduction to both dimensions and origami. The kids are then given instructions, included as printable PDFs, for morphing 2D paper into 3D models (a simple box and a water bomb).The activity ends with an illustrated look at dimensions, from the zero dimensions of a point to the fourth dimension of time.

This activity is a printable one-page PDF handout, which focuses on dinosaur movement. Using illustrations that compare a crocodile's hips to a dinosaur's, students answer a series of questions. Fun challenges, Animal Push-Ups and Reptile Races, help students better understand how a hole in the hip socket differentiates dinosaurs from other reptiles.

This OLogy activity offers kids a fun way to get firsthand knowledge of how archaeologists find lost sites. In Tools of the Trade, kids are given six cartoon frames, each illustrating a problem the archaeology team faced in locating a lost mission on St. Catherines Island. When kids select a frame, they are given details about the problem; they are then asked to pick which tool they think helped the team solve the problem. Each time they correctly identify a tool, they are given additional details of the story and the cartoon frame is "colored in." After correctly identifying the tools for all six cartoon frames, they have the option of printing a PDF of the full-color cartoon.

This OLogy activity first introduces kids to the idea of thought experiments. Then it puts their scientific creativity to work with two mind-bending experiments that rely solely on imagination. Both thought experiments have background information, plus concrete examples of how to approach the experiment. Specifically, they ask:Can you throw a ball so hard it never falls to Earth?What if light could only travel one foot/second?

This fun Web site is part of OLogy, where kids can collect virtual trading cards and create projects with them. Here, they explore the Tree of Life cladogram. The site begins with a brief explanation of cladograms and how the Tree of Life shows the relationship of all living things on Earth. A cladogram of fruit is used to demonstrate on a small scale how scientists use this tool to understand how things are similar and different. A portion of the Tree of Life cladogram is included, showing true bacteria, arthropods, mammals, and 11 other important groups of species. Students can mouse over the branching points to see what the subsets have in common. The site also includes a pie chart view that compares the relative size of the most important groups of species. Students can click on each group to learn its characteristics, known species, size range, and other important details.

This illustrated guide is designed to help students recognize and learn the different types of antennae found on arthropods. The single Web page, which can be easily printed for use at field sites or in the lab, shows plumose (featherlike) pectinate (comblike) serrate (sawlike) moniliform (beadlike) filiform (threadlike) aristrate (with bristles) elbowed (with a bend) clubbed (the segments towards the end are larger).

This illustrated guide is designed to help students recognize and learn the different types of compound leaves. The single Web page can be easily printed for use at field sites. Along with a short description, an illustration that identifies a leaflet and petiole is included for each type: pinnate (odd) twice pinnate pinnate (even) palmate.

In this classroom activity, middle school students explore cladistics by creating a cladogram. The activity opens with background information for teachers about cladistics. After discussing the relationship of some familiar mammals, students learn about how scientists use cladistics to determine evolutionary relationships among animals. Working in pairs, students complete a worksheet that directs them to examine coins and create a cladogram based on their shared characteristics. Then, small groups of students examine dinosaur illustrations, identify their shared features, and those features to classify the dinosaurs.

This classroom activity, which is structured as a series of mini-research projects, helps students understand how technological advances have aided the exploration of Antarctica. The printable handout includes a set of 10 research topics in three categories, explorers, Antarctica today, and technological advances for you to assign to small student teams.

In this classroom activity, middle school students gain an understanding of geologic time. The activity opens with background information for teachers about carbon and radiometric dating. In a classroom discussion, students share what they know about geologic time. Then, working in small groups responsible for different eras, students create a timeline for their assigned era by conducting library and Internet research. The activity concludes by having students review all the timelines to compare how long humans have been on the Earth to the length of time dinosaurs inhabited the planet.

This gallery of online resources is from the Museum's Seminars on Science, a series of distance-learning courses designed to help educators meet the new national science standards. Video Gallery: Man Bites Shark, part of the Sharks and Rays: Myth and Reality seminar, features three videos: Man Bites Shark I, which looks at the reasons sharks are threatened by people. Man Bites Shark II, which looks at Tampa Bay and how contamination from human development is affecting sharks. Man Bites Shark III, which looks at the role of sharks as a sentinel species, alerting us early on to problems within a habitat.

This offline OLogy game is a fun way to illustrate how all the organisms in an ecosystem are connected and depend on one another to survive. To play this game, you'll need at least six students and index cards, a marker/pen, and a ball of twine. A list of organisms to connect is included. As students toss the ball of twine to each other, they make connections between the organisms they are linking. The game ends with a discussion about what would happen to the "web of life" that's been created if an organism left the ecosystem.