Unequal Heating of Earth Activities for Middle School Science

The Kesler Science Convection Currents 5E Lesson is a comprehensive middle school unit exploring how the Sun’s energy drives convection within the atmosphere and oceans, producing winds and ocean currents. This fully editable, student-led lesson includes presentations, worksheets, choice projects, and assessments, requiring minimal prep while promoting differentiated learning. 

Following the 5E Model, the lesson engages students with vocabulary cards and class discussions, then guides them through a student-led station lab with nine differentiated exploration stations. These stations include hands-on experiments, reading passages in English and Spanish, research tasks, videos, and various output activities like writing, illustrating, and assessments. A bonus station offers extension activities for early finishers. 

The explanation phase features editable PowerPoints, interactive notebooks, and note-taking templates. Students extend their learning through choice projects, while evaluation includes STAAR 2.0-aligned assessments, review questions, and worksheets. 

Designed for maximum flexibility, this resource includes printable and digital formats with Spanish translations of key materials. It is fully adaptable for both classroom and virtual learning, ensuring accessibility and engagement for all students.

The Kesler Science Hurricane Formation and Tracking 5E Lesson provides comprehensive middle school content on how hurricanes form, are tracked, and measured. Aligned with the 5E instructional model—Engagement, Exploration, Explanation, Elaboration, and Evaluation—the lesson features fully editable presentations, differentiated worksheets, student-choice projects, and assessments tailored for student-led learning.

Students explore how oceans influence hurricane development and learn methods used in tracking these powerful storms. Interactive activities include differentiated station labs, hands-on experiments, multimedia tasks, reading passages with Spanish translations, and interactive notebook templates. Editable PowerPoints accommodate various classroom needs, with digital and printable formats ensuring flexibility for both classroom and virtual environments.

The lesson also provides student-choice projects for deeper exploration and evaluation materials updated for Texas STAAR 2.0 standards. Designed for minimal teacher preparation, it enables effective differentiated instruction, engaging all learners while supporting multimodal and bilingual approaches to teaching hurricanes.

The Kesler Science Oceans 5E Lesson offers an engaging, comprehensive unit for middle school classrooms, aligned with NGSS and TEKS standards. Built on the well-researched 5E Model (Engagement, Exploration, Explanation, Elaboration, and Evaluation), the lesson explores ocean composition, relationships between salinity, temperature, and density, ocean currents, seafloor structures, and human interactions with oceans.

The lesson includes editable PowerPoints, interactive notebook templates, worksheets, assessments, and student-choice projects. Differentiated materials accommodate diverse learning needs, and Spanish translations are provided for vocabulary, station lab passages, and interactive notebook activities. The student-led station lab incorporates multimodal input and output activities, such as hands-on experiments, reading comprehension, video analysis, research tasks, categorization activities, open-ended writing, and illustrations. An additional challenge station further extends student learning.

Flexible formats ensure the resources can be used effectively both in-person and virtually, with interactive elements designed to keep students engaged. STAAR 2.0-aligned assessments and review materials facilitate thorough evaluation of student understanding, making lesson preparation straightforward and effective.

Engage your students with this student-led Convection Currents Station Lab, designed for hands-on and interactive learning in earth science. This low-prep, modular activity allows students to explore how unequal heating and Earth’s rotation drive atmospheric and oceanic circulation, shaping regional climates.

Students work through nine differentiated stations, engaging with content through videos, readings, research, and hands-on demonstrations. They demonstrate their understanding by organizing information, illustrating models, answering questions, and completing assessments. A bonus challenge station offers extension activities for early finishers, and English and Spanish reading passages support differentiated instruction.

This versatile resource is ideal for in-class or virtual learning, promoting critical thinking and independent exploration.

Engage your classroom with this modular, student-led station lab aligned with NGSS standards, designed to help students develop and use models showing how Earth's unequal heating and rotation cause atmospheric and oceanic circulation patterns that influence regional climates.

Students independently explore hurricanes through nine interactive, differentiated stations featuring hands-on demonstrations, digital activities, research, reading, and videos. They demonstrate understanding by organizing information, illustrating models, writing responses, and completing assessments. An additional challenge station offers extension tasks like crosswords, games, and mini-projects for early finishers or advanced learners. Reading passages in English and Spanish support differentiated learning, and activities can be easily adapted for virtual or in-class environments.

This low-prep resource promotes active participation, personalized learning, and critical thinking in your middle school science curriculum.

Engage your students in exploring ocean systems with this modular, student-led station lab aligned with NGSS science standards. Designed for in-class or virtual learning, this resource encourages students to recognize human dependence on ocean systems and evaluate how human activities impact them through nine interactive, differentiated stations.

Students independently or collaboratively complete stations featuring multimodal input activities—hands-on explorations, informative readings available in English and Spanish, engaging videos, and web-based research. Output stations allow students to demonstrate understanding by organizing information, creating visual illustrations, writing short responses, and completing assessments using task cards.

A bonus challenge station provides enrichment activities, such as crosswords, games, and mini-projects, for early finishers and advanced learners. Easy-to-use materials and clear instructions promote active, personalized learning and critical thinking in your earth science curriculum.

The Convection Currents Student Choice Projects align with NGSS standards, allowing middle school students to select a project that fits their preferred output style. A project page outlines six student-led options plus a “design your own” project, all with an editable rubric for teacher, peer, or self-assessment. 

These flexible, multimodal projects provide creative ways for students to demonstrate their understanding. Two versions of the project page support differentiation, with modified options for students needing remediation and challenge options for advanced learners. Teachers can adjust the rubric to fit grading needs. 

The projects use standard classroom supplies like paper, markers, and scissors, with many options available for digital completion. Some crafting supplies may be useful for model-building.

The Hurricanes Student Choice Projects align with NGSS science standards, offering middle school students creative, personalized ways to demonstrate their learning. Students select from nine project options or create their own, guided by an editable rubric that assesses vocabulary, concepts, presentation, clarity, and accuracy.

Two differentiated project pages provide targeted support for students needing remediation and challenge options for advanced learners, allowing teachers to easily modify assessments. Projects can be completed with common classroom materials such as paper, markers, scissors, and crafting supplies, and digital options are also available.

This Oceans Student Choice Projects lesson aligns with NGSS science standards and allows middle school students to select a project matching their preferred output style. Students can choose from nine project options or create their own. Each option offers flexible, multimodal ways to demonstrate understanding, and includes an editable rubric for teacher, peer, or self-assessment.

Two differentiated versions of the project page accommodate students needing remediation or additional challenge, and teachers can easily modify the rubric for specific grading requirements. The projects utilize standard classroom supplies such as paper, markers, scissors, and basic crafting materials, with many options available digitally.