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Middle School Science

You can make experiments the most fun and engaging part of your science class. Experienced educators and curriculum specialists have developed each of these lessons, and we have tested them in real classrooms. PocketLab middle school lessons span across all the Next Generation Science Standard (NGSS) disciplines. Browse all the middle school lessons below or use the filters to search for specific content.

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No Ice Skates, No Rink, No Talent: NO PROBLEM!

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Submitted by Rich on Sat, 01/27/2018 - 21:55

Almost everyone enjoys watching the figure skating events in the Winter Olympic Games!  But only a select few worldwide with the required skills and God given talent have the opportunity to compete.  What about the rest of us?  We can’t even imagine how the Olympians manage to perform all of those fancy quad jumps and camel, layback, upright, and sit spins.  But we can sit in a chair, and with the right chair, we too can do a sit spin of sorts!  Add PocketLab and we can also learn some physics about conservation of angular momentum.

Grade Level

Maker Project: Voyager and littleBits™ Pet Monitor

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Submitted by Rich on Fri, 01/19/2018 - 22:31

Have you ever wondered what your dog does all day long while you are at work?  Is resting the major “activity” or is there some occasional wandering?  Is there silence or periodic barking, such as when the mailman comes or a squirrel is seen through a window?  The author of this lesson has a couple of schnauzers, known for their predisposition for barking.  “Welcome to the Bark Side” is a frequent phrase voiced to passersby while I am taking the schnauzers for a walk.  But how much do they bark when cooped up in the house and I am out someplace?   And do they move around a lot or mostly nap

PocketLab Voyager Rides Anki OVERDRIVE Supercar

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Submitted by Rich on Mon, 01/08/2018 - 21:07

People of all ages have enjoyed playing with toy race cars for many decades.  Anki OVERDRIVE is currently one of the most popular and technologically advanced race car sets available in the marketplace.  Why not attach Voyager to an Anki supercar and give your students a fun way to study angular velocity?!  Each student group can design there own racetrack and obtain a Voyager snapshot of angular velocity vs.

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Grade Level

LED Flame Lamp: Random or Cyclical Illumination?

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Submitted by Rich on Wed, 01/03/2018 - 19:00

Late in 2017 a handful of companies began selling LED flame lamps that do a great job of simulating an actual burning fire. The illumination is bright, has a color temperature of a warm orange flame, and the light produces negligible heat while running at under 5 watts of electric power. This light seems to be a great replacement for traditional gas lanterns, hurricane lamps, and oil lamps.  The simulated flame is unbelievably realistic in the flame light purchased by the author. No obvious pattern could be detected in the flickering LED flame by observing the light with the eye.

Grade Level

Programming Exercise: Voyager Light Sensor Drives a Scratch Program of the Eye

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Submitted by Rich on Sun, 12/10/2017 - 22:01

The eye is one of the many marvels of the human body.  The colored iris of the eye, surrounding the pupil, acts as a diaphragm to keep the amount of light entering the eye fairly constant.  If you walk out the door of your house to a sunny yard, the iris opening gets smaller letting less light into your eye.  If you enter a dark room after watching your favorite television program, the iris gets larger to allow more light to enter your eye.  This is a protective reflex, as too much light could damage the retina, which is where the image forms in the eye, similar to the film of a traditional

Grade Level

A Respiration Study with Voyager and Scratch Programming

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Submitted by Rich on Wed, 12/06/2017 - 20:13

This lesson is motivated by a respiration study using a FLIR ONE™ thermal camera in conjunction with the Vernier Thermal Analysis Plus app. Using Voyager and the PocketLab Temperature Probe, however, allows students to investigate respiration at a fraction of the cost of a thermal camera. The response time for the Temperature Probe is rapid enough to observe temperature differences in the air inhaled and exhaled through the mouth during the process of respiration.

Grade Level

Voyager & Ozobot: Teaming Up to Study Kepler’s Law of Equal Areas

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Submitted by Rich on Tue, 08/08/2017 - 19:45

Although there are a number of Web-based screen animations illustrating Kepler’s Law of Equal Areas, there are virtually no widespread physical demonstrations using actual hardware—at least not until Ozobot made the scene!  Now with Voyager and Ozobot working together as a team, the motion can be visualized and studied quantitatively

Grade Level

PocketLab Voyager: A Study of Color Reflectivity

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Submitted by Rich on Mon, 07/31/2017 - 20:31

A common experiment for studying the reflectivity of different colored surfaces makes use of colored construction paper, aluminum foil, a light source, and a light sensor.  Voyager’s light sensor and the little flashlight included with the Explorer Kit are perfect tools for performing this experiment.  Empty graphs and data tables suitable for copying for student use are included with this lesson.
 

Grade Level

Voyager & Ozobot: A STEM Team to Study Linear Motion

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Submitted by Rich on Sun, 07/30/2017 - 16:45

Ozobot “Evo” (ozobot.com) is a tiny one-inch diameter robot that can be quickly programmed using a Google Blockly dialect known as OzoBlockly (ozoblockly.com).  This lesson combines the ability to program Ozobot to move freely in a straight line with Voyager’s ability to sense the resulting motion through its range finder.  Students compute the slope of the resulting position versus time graph to determine Ozobot’s velocity.

Grade Level

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