6th Grade Science Skills

Life Science | Earth Science | Physical Science
Return to Grade Level Skills - For other resources, refer to our Elementary Science page
Page last edited 2/27/2009

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1. Habitats/Biomes - complex communities of interdependent organisms
2. Interdependence - lesson plan for discovering what makes a balanced ecosystem
3. Interdependence and Adaptation - [designed for 5-6 UK standards] interactive site from BBC
4. Plant Life for Children - lesson plan designed to teach about Plant & Animal Interdependency [designed for K-4, but can be modified]

1. Good Buddies - activity for students [horrible background]
2. Introduction to Symbiosis - includes an overlapping Venn diagram
3. Predation, Parasitism, Commensalism, and Mutualism in the Garden and in the Community
4. Symbiosis - most of the interactions between species involve food
5. Symbiosis, commensalism, mutualism and parasitism
6. Symbiosis: Living Together - assignment for student and information for teachers - written by C. Rhein of Hazelwood Central
7. Types of ecological interactions - a slide show with a large number of images

1. Animal Adaptations - lesson plan designed to expand students’ knowledge of animal features and behaviors that can help or hinder their survival in a particular habitat
   1. Animal Adaptations Worksheet
2. Biomes in a Box - students are asked to build a three-dimensional model of a biome in a box
3. Build a Fish - Build a Fish by choosing a body, mouth, and color/pattern, and then release it into the reef! In the process you will learn about adaptations that help the fish survive in their environment.
4. Unique Plants of the Biomes - lesson plan from Discovery School

1. Energy and Ecosystems - lesson plan from Annenberg
2. Food Chains and Food Webs - What's for dinner? from Enchanted Learning
3. Forest Food Webs - lesson plan frolm Discovery Education
4. Interesting Facts About Food Chains - a brief description of the food chains and food webs in an ecosystem
5. Predator/Prey Relationship - an interactive investigation from McGraw Hill
6. Working on the Food Chain - interactive site

1. Interdependence and Adaptation - Use this BBC interactive site to review living things, then take a quiz about interdependence and the food web
2. Food Chains - an interactive site from the BBC
3. Welcome to Biology 2002 - This college level PowerPoint show has some great images. Save the show, throw out the college content and modify the show for your classroom.

1. Experiment with a Pond Food Web - change various population sizes to see what affect the change has
2. Food Chain - National Geographic for Kids has a featured Quick Flick from Brain Pop on the subject.
3. Food Chains and Webs - Information regarding population size on food webs is presented here. After learning about food webs, select the link named "create a possible food web" at the bottom of the page. Click and drag to create your own food web.

1. Adaptation Activity - Learn how animals adapt to their environment while playing this online game about beavers.
2. Build a Fish - Build a Fish by choosing a body, mouth, and color/pattern, and then release it into the reef! In the process you will learn about adaptations that help the fish survive in their environment.
3. Dinosaur Habitat and Community - a BBC presentation about these very adaptable animals
4. Flamingos - Adaptations for Their Environment
5. How Cactus survive in the desert
6. Plant Adaptations in Arid Environments - The plants that grow in the arid eastern region near the Columbia River and the Columbia Basin have a number of traits which help them to be successful in the desert.
7. Pheromone Trails - This is a real-time 3D simulation that demonstrates how ants use pheromones to communicate. The student is able to interact with the simulation's artificial intelligence and environment to see how the ants will react to changes in their environment.

1. Animal Adaptation E-Safaris - meet some interesting animals to explore how they are adapted to their environments

1. Animal and Plant Classification - [this link opens on a new page] a 20 question Quia quiz
2. Animal Classification Jeopardy - [this link opens on a new page] a Quia quiz
3. Classifying Animals - When you classify an animal you place it in the group to which it belongs
4. Classifying Animals - an overview of the seven taxons from Fact Monster
5. Who Wants to be an Animal Classification Millionaire? - [this link opens on a new page] a Quia quiz

1. Amber in Nature - Look at pieces of amber to find out what is captured inside and what clues it provides about the ancient ecosystem.
2. Fantastic Fossil Finds
3. Fossil Horse Cyber Museum - from the Florida Museum of Natural History
4. Fossil Lesson Plans - lesson plans on fossils of individual phyla, as well as general lesson plans for introducing fossils and how they are formed
5. Fossils - Clues to the Past - Fossils provide clues to what life was like in ancient times.
6. Fossils of Iowa
7. Fossils Rock - especially for teachers, students, and homeschoolers who want to put some fun into their earth science classes
8. How fossils can form - This animation shows the formation of a cast and mold, one way that fossils can form. Casts are copies of fossilized plants or animals. Molds are hollow impressions of the fossil. This process takes thousands or millions of years.
9. How Fossils Form - from Enchanted Learning
10. Life Has a History - an educational module sponsored by the National Science Foundation (select level 2 for 5-8)
11. Paleontology Portal -
12. Recreating extinct animals from fossil evidence is like completing a giant jigsaw puzzle, but without all the pieces.
13. Resources for K-12 Teachers and Students
14. Trilobite Cookies - just for fun, looks like a great cookie
15. Virtual Fossil Museum - fossils across geological time and evolution
16. What Are Fossils - from the San Diego Natural History Museum
17. What is a Fossil - discussion of Type I and Type II fossils
18. What's a Fossil? - from the UN Museum

1. Conservation Genetics - The science of Conservation Biology studies individuals and populations that have been affected by habitat loss, exploitation, and/or environmental change.

1. Age of Fossils
2. The Clock Of Eras - a graphic aid to help visualize geologic time
3. Determining Age of Rocks and Fossils - from UCMP Berkeley
4. Fossils, Rocks, and Time - from USGS
5. Fossils Through Time - choose a time period to see what life was like
6. Geology of the Grand Canyon - The ultimate display of rock layers
7. Geology of the Grand Canyon area - from Wikipedia
8. Grand Canyon National Park - geology field notes from the NPS
9. Grand Canyon Rock Layers - includes a mnemonic sentence to help you remember the layers
10. How Old Can it Be? - lesson plan including picture cards to print
11. Overview of Grand Canyon Geology and Rock Formations - from a Grand Hikes page
12. Prehistoric Life - determining the age of rocks and fossils
13. Relative Age - determining relative age from the rock record
14. Relative Dating - stratigraphy and the principles of relative dating
15. Relative Time Scale - from USGS
16. Who's On First? - a Relative Dating activity

1. Barringer Meteorite Crater -

1. Astronomy - Rotation & Revolution - [this link opens on a new page] a Quia quiz
2. The night sky from the same location during a year - This sequence of images shows simulated views of the night sky from Chicago, Illinois. The frames show the view from Earth at midnight, once a week over a year.
3. Rise and Set Times for the Sun and Moon - To find today's Rise and Set Times for the Sun and Moon anywhere in the continental US, click on the map at the desired location.

1. Build Your Own Coaster - interactive site at Dicovery.com
2. The Cause of Tides - the easy version
3. Design a Roller Coaster - from Amusement Park Physics
4. From Apples to Orbits - a Think Quest entry
5. Gravitation - encyclopedia article from Encarta
6. Gravity - The Universe's Main Attraction
7. Gravity Concept Map - individual concepts are hyperlinked
8. Gravity Definition Page - from Windows to the Universe
9. How Does Gravity Work - from How Stuff Works
10. Sir Isaac Newton - the law of universal gravitation
11. Universal Gravitation - Gravity is More Than a Name
12. Universal Gravitation - The Apple, the Moon, and the Inverse Square Law
13. Universal Gravitation - Newton's Law of Universal Gravitation
14. Welcome to the death defying Funderstanding Roller Coaster! - This simulator is designed for kids who want to design their own thrilling coaster and educators who want to use a cool activity to simulate the application of physics by using an exciting interactive tool and access to a wonderful reference source.
15. Your Weight on Other Worlds - determined by how hard a planet pulls on you

1. Examine the vast distances between planets in the solar system - This animation simulates a voyage from the sun past all nine planets. In this animation, the apparent speed of the viewer is over 300 times the speed of light.
2. Exploring Planets in the Classroom - Hands-on Activities for Science Classes. More than 25 hands-on science activities are provided in classroom-ready pages for both teachers and students for exploring Earth, the planets, geology, and space sciences.
3. Field Guide to the Universe - Solar System
4. Learn about the Planets - [this link opens on a new page] from KidsAstronomy
5. The Nine Eight Planets: A Multimedia Tour of the Solar System
6. Order it up - Measures of size and scale help us understand the magnitude of objects. Play with scales while trying to arrange planets by magnitude of mass, size, temperature, density, distance, gravity or magnetic field. Correctly order the planets and you unscramble a mystery picture! To play, click on the blue link; Play Order it Up: Solar System Edition
7. Planets of the solar system - Click on a planet to get a short bit of information about each one. Caution, relative sizes are not accurate.
8. Planetary Orbits - A neat Shockwave simulation showing planetary orbits.
9. Pluto demoted to dwarf planet
10. Solar System - This real-time 3D simulation allows the student to inspect our solar system from any angle or vantage point as well as gain detailed information about each element.
11. Views of the Solar System - This site presents a vivid multimedia adventure unfolding the splendor of the Sun, planets, moons, comets, asteroids, and more. Discover the latest scientific information, or study the history of space exploration, rocketry, early astronauts, space missions, spacecraft through a vast archive of photographs, scientific facts, text, graphics and videos. Views of the Solar System offers enhanced exploration and educational enjoyment of the solar system and beyond.
12. Virtual Solar System by National Geographic - your chance to discover the wonders of our solar system in a spectacular 3-D environment. Take a fly-by tour of the sun and each planet in its orbit, observe close-up views of the planets, extraterrestrial weather patterns, and more.
13. Welcome to the Planets - This is a collection of many of the best images from NASA's planetary exploration program.

1. Amazing Space is a set of web-based activities primarily designed for classroom use, but made available for all to enjoy.
2. An animation of a comet's passage through the solar system - Compared to the planets, most comets have highly elliptical orbits and widely varying orbital speeds. Comet Halley's next passage through the inner solar system will occur in the year 2061.
3. Astronomy Resources at Internet4Classrooms
4. Atlas of the Universe - This web page is designed to give everyone an idea of what our universe actually looks like. There are nine main maps on this web page, each one approximately ten times the scale of the previous one.
5. The Cosmic Distance Scale - This feature will give an impression of how immense our Universe is by employing a method used many times in "Power of 10" films - that is, starting with an image of the Earth and then zooming out to the furthest visible reaches of our Universe.
6. The Cosmic Distance Scale - a series of web-based exercises designed to take students on an interactive tour measuring cosmic distances
7. The Cosmic Distance Scale - a lecture with illustrations and images
8. Galaxy Index - photo index which leads to pages with more complete information
9. Spiral Galaxy pictures - Alwyn Botha has posted this excellent set of galaxy pictures to assist those who want to take their own astro photographs, or those who simply want to see the beautiful pinwheel shapes of spiral galaxies. Thanks for all of the hard work Alwyn.
10. How many stars are there in the Universe? - an interesting article on how to make an estimate of the number of stars
11. Hubble Heritage Project - index to images from the Hubble Space Telescope
12. Hubble Space Telescope's greatest hits - some of the best images from 1990-1995, plus links to other Hubble images.
13. Mysteries of Deep Space from PBS Online
14. National Science Foundation Division of Astronomical Sciences provides some useful links to astronomical on-line resources.
15. NOVA - an archive of past NOVA shows on the subject of space
16. Photo Gallery of the National Space Science Data Center
17. Space Science Education Resource from NASA
18. Space Telescope Science Institute - Astronomy resources, data archives and HST
19. StarChild - A Learning Center for Young Astronomers from NASA
20. Star Journey is based on National Geographic's popular map, "The Heavens."
21. Understanding the Universe - an exploration with the American Museum of Natural History at DiscoverySchool.com
22. Windows to the Universe - the site is written in three reading levels approximating elementary, middle school and high school reading levels - levels may be chosen by using the upper button bar of each page of the main site

1. Animation of a Lunar Eclipse
2. Animation of a Solar Eclipse - simultaneous animation of total, partial, and annular eclipses
3. Eclipses - This real-time 3D simulation of the Sun, Earth, and moon explains lunar and solar eclipses, as well as the defined moon phases. The student can manipulate the Sun, the Earth, and the moon into all of their phases as well as view the phases from a variety of different perspectives.
4. Eclipse Home Page at the NASA/GSFC Sun-Earth Connection Education Forum. This web site is continually expanding and strives to be the ultimate resource for online information about eclipses.
5. Excellent animation of a lunar eclipse from APOD
6. Mechanics of Lunar Eclipses - great diagrams | Lunar Eclipses occurring between 1999 and 2020
7. Mechanics of Solar Eclipses - great diagrams | Solar Eclipses occurring between 1999 and 2020
8. Moon and Sun - A solar eclipse composite photo
9. Solar Eclipses through Space and Time - this 41 slide show is filled with information, images and movies

1. Animation of Earth's yearly revolution around the sun - In order to illustrate how much sunlight different parts of Earth receive through the year, this model shows our planet much larger and closer to the sun than it actually is.
2. Do Shadows Change With The Seasons? - a worksheet to print and use with your class
3. How Does Sunrise and Sunset Change with the Seasons? - a worksheet to print and use with your class
   1. Closure activity to use with the seasons lesson plan
4. Observe seasonal changes in the amount of sunlight reaching locations on Earth - This animation shows a satellite view of Earth every day for a year. Examine the sunlit side of the globe to recognize the continent of Australia and peninsulas and islands of Southeast Asia.
5. Reasons for the Seasons - includes some excellent illustrations
6. The Reasons for the Seasons - This lesson plan is actually three activities in one to be conducted over a three-day period (one day in the fall, one in the winter, and one in the spring).
7. Seasons - explanation from MSN Encarta
8. Seasons - find exactly when the seasons start for any year from 1902 to 2102 with this java applet
9. Seasons Reasons - What is the cause of the seasons? This explanation features an animation of the earth’s movement during a year. [careful, you may get seasick watching it!]
10. The Seasons - very good diagrams
11. What causes Earth’s seasons? - Our planet's tilt dictates cycle of spring and fall

1. Bay of Fundy - home of what may be the world's largest tide range
   1. Bay of Fundy Tourism Information
   2. Hopewell Rocks - at the Bay of Fundy
   3. Undersea Landscapes - the Bay of Fundy
2. The King of Tides - a WebQuest which asks students to collect data and support a conclusion regarding the moon's role in creating tides.
3. Lesson on tides with a good diagram of spring tides and neap tides from the Department of Physics & Astronomy at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville
4. Moon Tides - how the moon affects ocean tides
5. Ocean Tides - introduction to the hydrosphere
6. Our Restless Tides - a brief explanation of the astronomical factors which produce tides from NOAA's Oceanographic Products and Services Division
7. Tide - from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
8. Tide Prediction and Data - from NOAA
9. Tides - spring and neap tide explanation from Enchanted Learning
10. Water Level Tidal Predictions - from NOAA
11. What Causes Tides? - This explanation of giant tides in the Bay of Fundy also includes a great illustration of the various types of tides.

1. The Anatomy of a Wave - from the chapter on Properties of Waves at the Physics Classroom
2. Basic Electromagnetic Wave Properties - this java applet lets students change wavelength, frequency or amplitude of electromagnetic waves, thus changing the color of the radiation.
3. Electromagnetic Spectrum - In this applet, you can click on the wavelength/frequency scale and change the wavelength and frequency by dragging the mouse or by using the arrow keys on the keyboard. Holding the shift key down while pressing the left or right arrow keys changes the wavelength by a factor of 10.
4. Frequency, Wavelength, & Amplitude - from a physics tutoring site
5. Introduction to Waves - a multi-part lesson from the BBC
6. Ocean Waves - This is a real-time 3D wave simulator which demonstrates the connection between wind speed and ocean particle motion depth. The student can modify the properties of an ocean wave and see the effect from any perspective.
7. Parts of a Wave - the wave and its parts are discussed here, including a nice java applet which allows your students to change wave frequency
8. Properties of a Wave - from the Physics Classroom
9. Wave Addition - Experiment with how different wavelengths combine to produce a resultant wave.

1. Energy Matters - the physics of energy
2. Energy Transformation - from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
3. Energy Transformation on a Roller Coaster - from the Physics Classroom
4. Forms of Energy - examples of each type
5. Kinetic and Potential Energy - a Think Quest entry
6. Kinetic vs Potential Energy - [this link opens on a new page] a Quia quiz

1. Dark Wet Spot - video explanation of the effect of water on reflection or transmission of light
2. Experiment with mirrors - study reflection at an interactive BBC site
3. Image Formation in Plane Mirrors - a set of pages with great illustrations, animations, and several quizzes
4. Image Formation by Lenses - a set of pages with great illustrations, and several quizzes
5. Light Absorption, Reflection, and Transmission - from a chapter on Color and Vision
6. Lens Experiment - Java Applet allows students to change lens position
7. Properties of Light - reflection, refraction, dispersion, and refractive indices
8. Wavelike Behaviors of Light - from the Physics Classroom
9. What Makes Things the Color They Are? - good illustrations of each of the elements of this SPI

1. The Challenges of Nuclear Power - information and a large number of links
2. Chernobyl Disaster - from Wikipedia
3. Dispelling Myths About Nuclear Energy
4. Nuclear Power - energy from splitting Uranium atoms