The mission of the California Academy of Sciences is to explore, explain, and sustain life.

Anoushka Takla’s fourth graders seek to answer the question: “What happens to our trash over time?”

Erica spent a few months exploring phases of the moon with her fifth grade students. She adapted lessons from Lawrence Hall of Science’s GEMS in order to give her students lots of opportunities to answer the Essential Question: Why does the moon look different on different days? 

Explore the amazing diversity of plants, animals, and ecosystems that are found on the continent of Africa!

In this role-playing skit your students will describe the various processes of the water cycle in the Amazon.

In this activity, students are asked to create a change in air pressure using a garbage bag and vacuum cleaner, then create an illustration, model or concept map that explains what is happening.

How does the finite amount of carbon on this planet move around in the environment, from one place to another?

Working in groups, students can create simple illustrations of how carbon flows between the biosphere, hydrosphere, atmosphere and lithosphere.

In this classic activity, students trace allele frequencies in a population through many generations of bunnies.

By building an edible coral polyp, students will learn the anatomy of coral and be able to explain why corals are animals, rather than plants.

How can we use math and computational thinking and an understanding of the benefits and drawbacks of various fuel options to design an efficient public bus system?

In this hands-on investigation, students will explore the concepts of buoyancy and mass to create a device to help an action figure stay neutrally buoyant, just like a scuba diver.

In this activity, students will unknowingly act as predators on candy.

Use the Carbon Café food cubes to initiate conversation about making better food choices for the health of our environment, through developing an understanding of relative carbon footprints of various foods.

We use our teeth in many different ways. In this yummy activity, students will discover which teeth they use to eat different types of food.

There’s bound to be a citizen science project that’s right for you!

In this two-part inquiry-based activity, students will practice using the scientific method while learning about decomposition, exploring how some types of garbage will decompose while others will not. Students can then go on to design their own experiment to test different variables affecting the rate of decomposition.

This lesson uses the imaginary location of Conservation Island to teach students about some of the real-world issues involved in making conservation plans to save endangered species.

While we use this demonstration in an on-site museum program for 3rd grade school groups, the activity can easily be adapted for your own classroom, aquarium, or science center!

In this lesson, students will participate in a natural selection simulation, flipping pennies to mimic the probability of passing on certain traits.