Elementary
November 20 - November 26, 2013

Find the latest educational resources from Iowa Public Television.

Miami, Florida

Grades: 1-4

Join Wilson and Ditch as they hang out on a local beach in Miami, Florida, enjoying the sun, soft sand, and surf before going to see an alligator show at a gator rescue farm near the Everglades National Park. Viewers learn that Miami is the largest city in Florida and the 4th largest city in America and because it is the southernmost state on the map and has a close proximity to Cuba, there is a lot of Spanish spoken.

Centripetal Force: Pulling Cs and Gs
Grade Range: 3-8

This interactive activity from NOVA explains centripetal force, the force that keeps your car from driving off the road when rounding a corner. The activity also reveals how much force a fighter pilot's body can withstand before he or she loses consciousness.

Decomposers
Grade Range: K-5

We've all been victimized by decomposers: Lettuce rots; bread becomes moldy. Bacteria and fungi often consume our food before we have a chance to. However, if we stop to consider the important work that decomposers do, we may be a little less disgruntled by their presence. This video segment from Interactive NOVA: "Earth" describes the role of decomposers in the living world.

Designing a Poster to Communicate Information: Yellowstone National Park
Grade Range: 3-6

Using notes they have taken while watching a video, students work as part of a group to create an interesting and informative poster with pictures and facts about Yellowstone National Park.

Compare and Contrast - City Pigeons and City Parrots
Grade Range: 4-8

Students watch two segments about city birds to identify the similarities and differences between them. While viewing the segments, students take notes using a T-chart. Finally, students construct a Venn diagram to show they are able to compare and contrast the characteristics of the two types of birds

What's the Author's Purpose? Animal Shelter
Grade Range: 4-8

Using a 2-column chart, students scaffold their thinking and draw conclusions about the author's purpose. When students can identify whether an author's purpose for writing a text is to inform, persuade, entertain, or describe, they are better equipped to evaluate its content as they make inferences and draw conclusions.

Reading Charts and Tables - Garden Spider
Grade Range: 3-5

After watching a video segment about garden spiders students read a chart that reflects information about the spiders in the segment and answer a series of questions using the chart.

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