One of the features of the Discovery Education website is a physical science lesson plan library divided into sections according to grade level: K-5, 6-8, and 9-12. The lesson plans are detailed and include vocabulary definitions, standards and benchmarks, and rubrics for assessment, as well as links to external websites for further information. While the lesson plans generally recommend showing a related Discovery Education video to supplement the lesson topic, viewing the video is not required to teach the majority of the lessons.
Grades K-5 lesson topics include electricity, forces and motion, and sound. The lesson plans are hands-on and engaging, with exciting activities such as building electrical circuits, constructing catapults, investigating the nature of sound using drums and tuning forks, and exploring Newton's laws of motion by playing marbles.
Grades 6-8 lessons include elements and compounds, temperature and pressure, gravity, friction and radioactive decay. Hands-on activities include building bridges, constructing egg parachutes, designing and building roller coasters and Rube Goldberg machines, and investigating half-life using coins or M&Ms.
Grades 9-12 lessons include the periodic table, atomic structure, elements, acids and bases, and chemical reactions. Hands-on activities include modeling redshift using water waves, designing sails, designing and building Lego cars, and making polymers. Some of the high school lessons require students to do research and write papers on topics such as space exploration and the effect of friction and gravity on different types of sports.
In addition to lesson plans, the Discovery Education website also includes many other useful features, such as New Teacher Survival Central, which has tips for new teachers, blogs, tutorials, curriculum resources, and classroom management ideas. It also has down loadable templates for tests and quizzes, PowerPoint templates, and other time-saving features.
The Curriculum Center has interesting facts to engage students' interest, and ideas and suggestions for hands-on experiments and projects.
The Brain Boosters library has a large collection of challenging logic and lateral thinking brain teasers that can be used as sponge activities.
The Puzzlemaker feature allows teachers to create custom puzzles, including crosswords, word searches, scrambled words and cryptograms for students to practice vocabulary while having fun.
Kathy Schrock's Guide for Educators provides links to an extensive number of teaching and learning websites. It also includes a teacher helpers section with rubrics, tools for critical evaluation of websites, and information the use of technology in the classroom, such as webquests, podcasting and digital cameras.
The website also includes a guide for planning and coordinating a science fair, including types of projects, presentations, and judging criteria.