Investigating joints: Naming and identifying joints in the human body part of MnSTEP Activity Mini-collection
Short Description: This activity is a classroom investigation of human joints. Students will identify joints and use their science notebooks to record their findings using drawings and words.

Catapults: controlled investigations part of MnSTEP Activity Mini-collection
This activity is a controlled investigation of a catapult system.

Beginning Scientific Inquiry with Water Kits part of MnSTEP Activity Mini-collection
This activity is a scientific investigation focusing on inquiry after using the Foss Water Kit. The students will pose a question, create a procedure and produce a poster showing their findings.

Comparing the Simple Structure of Plant and Animal Cells part of MnSTEP Activity Mini-collection
The lesson is designed for fourth grade students using scientific investigation to identify and compare the basic parts of a plant and animal cells. This activity consists of several steps over a period of several days. It includes student use of microscopes for observations and journals to collect data to identify and classify the basic parts of plant and animal cells. The assessment has an individual component and uses student work.

FOSS Variables FOSS Lifeboat Investigation: Developing Investigable Question, Investigation (Experimentation), and Communicating Results part of MnSTEP Activity Mini-collection
This activity is an extension of the FOSS Variables Lifeboat investigation. Students choose a lifeboats variable to investigate, write up an experiment based on the variable to be tested, test the variable, and create a lifeboats investigation poster to share their results.

Measuring and Comparing Matter part of MnSTEP Activity Mini-collection
This activity is a lab investigation where students gather data about the masses of various solid objects found in a classroom. The students graph their data, compare their data, and draw conclusions about what kinds of materials contain more matter than others.

Inquiry: How herbs change based on growing conditions part of MnSTEP Activity Mini-collection
Students will create and investigate testable questions about how basil changes based on growing conditions.

How Does Water Get Polluted? part of MnSTEP Activity Mini-collection
This activity is a hands-on modeling of the effects of pollution on our ground and surface water. Students will observe and record their observations as pollution is placed on the ground in their model and it is rained upon.

Looking at Clouds: Identifying Cumulus, Cirrus and Stratus Clouds part of MnSTEP Activity Mini-collection
This activity involves student teams classifying clouds into the main categories, making a poster of their findings, having a poster session and learning the vocabulary terms cirrus, stratus and cumulus.

Investigating Ordering Planets: Math Connections and Number Sense in Science part of MnSTEP Activity Mini-collection
This set of activities is designed to help students develop an understanding of scale/distance and ordering the planets from the sun, understanding Earth's position in the solar system, and developing new ways of determining "order."