Tools and Guidelines for Lesson Development

These guidelines have grown over the years from our experience working with teachers on lesson development and classroom testing.

Design and Construction

• Send us URL's of your completed lessons. We'd like to see what you're up to!
• Lesson plan template Use a summary page to provide information on subject, age/grade level, required background, materials, and time needed. See our template for a sample layout.
• Start with several ideas for topics that fit with your curricular requirements. Then search the Web and see what science data, processing tools/services, and expert help are available.
• Be flexible. Search engines can be very helpful in finding what you want, but not everything imaginable is on the Internet yet! Therefore:
• Be an opportunist. Be ready to take advantage of a great tool or resource that you find while looking for something else.
• Engage students in an investigation:
  • Identifying a question
  • Forming a hypothesis
  • Planning and carrying out a test of a hypothesis
  • Obtaining remote-sensing data, both numerical and image data
  • Graphing data, interpreting and deriving data values from images
  • Sharing information in verbal accounts, images, or graphs
  • Drawing conclusions based on the way data support a hypothesis
  • Presenting and discussing alternative explanations with other students
• Use the unique resources and capabilities of the Web and Internet:
  • access multiple data sets at remote locations
  • query experts using email
  • run programs offered on research Web sites
  • collaborate with others across the nation or the world
• Use National and State Science Education Standards. Showing how the lesson aligns with grade-appropriate standards, using pages like these for grades K-4, grades 5-8 and grades 9-12, helps define its function in a larger curriculum informed by scientific inquiry.
• Keep it simple at the start. There's always room to expand
• Include author contact information, preferably via email

Tools and Help

• Lesson Quality Checklist is a set of questions to help you produce top-quality, robust Web lessons.
• National Science Education Standards
  • Grades K-4
  • Grades 5-8
  • Grades 9-12
• SEGway Grab Bag page of images, movies, interactive Java and other tools.
• NASA's Quest Project: Online chats and Learning Channel events you and your class can join.