Free Alternative Energy Resources for Your Middle School Science Classroom

If you’re teaching about climate change, energy resources, or human impact on the environment, then you know it can be tricky to find middle school science materials that are both engaging and easy to use. That’s why I’m sharing two of my favorite FREE resources that are classroom-tested, standards-aligned, and ready to go!

🌱 Free Alternative Energy Google Slides Presentation
This ready-to-use slideshow introduces students to the basics of alternative energy, including solar, wind, geothermal, hydroelectric, and biomass energy. It’s great for whole-group instruction, student-led research, or even as a review tool.
👉 Grab it here for free

📝 Free Alternative Energy Cloze Notes
Pair the slideshow with these editable cloze notes to reinforce key concepts. Students fill in the blanks as they follow along, helping them focus and retain new vocabulary. Plus, it’s a super easy way to check for understanding.
👉 Download the cloze notes here

These free resources are just a sneak peek of what’s included in my full 3-Week Climate Change Unit for Middle School. This comprehensive unit is packed with:

✅ Step-by-step lesson plans
✅ Student-friendly readings
✅ Hands-on activities
✅ Editable Google Docs and Slides
✅ Assessments with answer keys

It’s designed to make teaching climate science easier—whether you’re new to the topic or just looking to refresh your materials.
👉 Check out the full unit here

Final Thoughts

Teaching about climate change and energy can feel overwhelming—but it doesn’t have to be. With a few solid resources (and a little planning), you can make this unit one of the most meaningful and memorable parts of your year.

And remember—these two alternative energy resources are totally free, and they’re a great starting point for any teacher looking to bring real-world science into the classroom.

If you’ve used them with your students, I’d love to hear how it went! Drop a comment or tag me on social media.

🌎 Let’s help the next generation understand and protect our planet—one lesson at a time.

The Lab Day Struggle Is Real

That lab day when 8 beakers broke during first block. The crystal growing solution that spilled into the nooks and crannies of your keyboard. The student who took the dissected frog home to feed his dog. The directions you repeated forty, fifty, sixty times. We’ve all had those days.

Of course I want my students to do labs. Not only are they the most fun part of science, they’re also the best way for students to understand a concept. Labs also give students an opportunity to practice skills like data collection, collaboration, and communication – although some days, the only skill they practice is carrying a graduated cylinder without dropping it.

But lab days are exhausting! I teach with a rotating drop schedule, so there are weeks when every day is a lab day for at least one class. Classroom management is at least two notches more difficult, and set up and clean up occupy all of my prep time. Then, as a reward, I get a stack of lab reports to read.

Fear not! I’ve got a set of practical systems that won’t guarantee success, but will help you keep your cool and get through lab days with as little chaos as possible.

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1. 🔍 Prep Like a Pro

Know Your Supplies, Space, and Students

• Keep a master checklist for common supplies (beakers, vinegar, goggles, etc.).
• Color-code or bin supplies by group to speed up setup and cleanup.
• Have students preview instructions or watch a demo the day before.
• Store materials by content – The five large cabinets in the back of my room are for earth science, physical science, life science, environmental science and measurement.
• Label everything in your storage room or cabinets.
• Bonus Tip: Prep one or two extra station kits—there’s always a spill or missing piece!

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2. 👩‍🔬 Lab Groups That Work

Assign Smarter, Not Harder

• Use role cards: Materials Manager, Data Recorder, Cleanup Crew, etc.
• Rotate roles each lab so no one is “just watching.”
• Assign groups intentionally—balance personalities and skills. Pairing a higher level student with a lower level student helps them both, although in different ways. Pairing a student who is very good at writing with a student who is strong in math helps them both. In some situations, it makes sense to put the strong students together to tier the lab activity.
• Use your bulletin board space for a anchor chart on lab roles. Make the vocabulary of lab roles part of the vernacular in your classroom.
• Let students have choice – either who they work with or what their role is – at least until they make bad choices.

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3. 📝 Streamline Instructions

Say It Once, Show It Twice

• Print and distribute directions for each student.
• Use your projector or Smart Board to show visual directions (photos, diagrams, step-by-steps).
• Demo each step of the lab or the entire lab before students begin.
• Pro Tip: Let early finishers help others without doing it for them.

4. ⏳ Behavior Management

Establish rules and consequences

• Set expectations before the lab starts. Go over rules like “no horseplay,” “ask before touching,” and “no eating/drinking” before anyone touches a single test tube.
• Model correct behavior. Physically walk through how to carry glassware, measure liquids, and clean up safely—middle schoolers need to see it.
• Enforce consequences consistently. If you say a student will sit out the rest of the lab for misbehavior, follow through. Every time.
• Keep materials at your command center and only release supplies when you’re ready—no free-for-alls. This is particularly important when the materials are super fun (vinegar and baking soda….).

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5. ⏳ Time-Saving Systems

Get In, Get Done, Get Clean

• Use timers at each station to keep things moving.
• Teach (and rehearse) cleanup expectations like a mini fire drill.
• Set up a “Lab Help” signal (like red/yellow/green cups or laminated signs).

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6. ✅ Grading Without Losing Your Weekend

Less Paper, More Learning

• Use quick lab exit tickets instead of full lab reports.
• Use rubrics for lab reports. Rubrics can help you save time grading by providing a checklist of criteria.
• Skim lab reports instead of poring over every word and mark the rubric as you go.
• Boss Level: Use Doctopus  and save even more time!
• Limit the length of the assignments. “Write 70-100 words to answer this question…”
• Remember your job is to grade, not to edit. In science, I grade students on the quality of their answers, not on their writing ability. I may circle misspelled words or grammar, but I don’t belabor it.
• If you’re grading digitally, keep a file of commonly used comments. For all written assignments or lab reports, I compose a doc for myself that contains the comments I anticipate using. “Use your data to support your conclusion,” is one I use a lot!

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You Can Love Lab Days Again

Using a few key systems, lab day can run smoothly and you can enjoy them as much as the kids do. Let your first lab in September be a “how to do labs” experience, and then reinforce the routine every time. They’ll be humming along by winter 🙂

Comment your favorite lab day survival tip below!

I was about 2 days into my geologic time unit when I put up this human history timeline on the window of my classroom. It was a great focal point for the geologic time and natural selection units this year.

For weeks, I referred to the human history time line. Now that we’re in the natural selection unit, I have used this time line as the focal point for so many references.

• Introducing Natural Selection – I used the human evolution time line to show how human traits (like brain size, bipedalism, or tool use) evolved gradually through selection pressures.
• Variation in Traits – Use the time line to point out the differences between species like Australopithecus afarensis and Homo erectus to discuss how variation is essential for natural selection to act.
• Survival of the Fittest – Use examples from the timeline to explain how certain traits helped early humans survive in changing environments.
• Adaptation Over Time – Highlight how traits like opposable thumbs or the ability to speak were advantageous, helping early humans adapt to their environments.
• Extinction of Other Hominins – Refer to species like Neanderthals to explore why some lineages didn’t survive.
• Environmental Pressures – Show how climate changes or migration events influenced evolutionary changes in humans.
• Common Ancestors – Use the timeline to illustrate how all humans share a common ancestor with other primates, reinforcing the tree of life concept.
• Misconceptions About Evolution – Point to the gradual changes in species to debunk the idea that humans evolved “from” monkeys.
• Homologous Structures – Compare the features of related species to demonstrate that they have a common ancestor.
• Molecular Biology –Using modern DNA technology, we can see how much Neanderthal DNA individuals have. The number of similarities is inversely proportional to the time of divergence from Neanderthals.

Having a focal point like this human history timeline has been a point of reference for weeks, leading us through two big units of study and bringing us toward ecosystems.

Try it out for yourself here!

HOW many times have you provided feedback for a student to help them improve their CER or lab conclusion writing, and then been disappointed when the student didn’t implement your feedback in their next assignment? If I had a nickel…..

Have you logged in to Magic School yet? It’s a fantastic versatile AI program that is adaptable for school use. Here’s how I used AI to help my students make writing their CER a game – and got significantly better results.

First, create an account on Magic School. The basic level is free and has tons of resources.

Then, select “Launch to Students.” This creates a “room” that you can populate with any of the AI tools you want students to use.

Add the tools that you want your students to use. For my CER feedback activity, I used “Writing Feedback” tool.

You can customize the tool after you’ve added it to your room. I added specific directions for the assignment and uploaded the rubric that students would be scored against.

Once I created the room, I shared it with students and they copied/pasted their CER first drafts into the bot.

The Writing Feedback tool provides students with very detailed feedback including areas of strength and specific suggestions for improvement.

Students could ask the tool to score their writing against the rubric. And this is where it became a game. Challenge your students to keep revising and improving their writing until Magic School says it would receive a perfect score on the rubric. My students were utterly hooked – they wrote and rewrote and edited and re-edited exhaustively.

In the end, their CER writing was the best I’ve seen this year. Even better, they were more confident about their writing.

Check it out and let me know what you think!

Here are two CER activities featured in the JustAddH2OSchool store:

Here’s a confession – I get bored easily. Teaching the same content 5 times a day (for 37 years) is boring. So I shake it up a little by adding movement into my middle school science lessons. It gives me entertainment, engages the kids, and gives us all a little brain break.

Why incorporate movement?

If you need convincing that allowing your 11-14 year olds time to get up and move is good for you and good for them, here are my top 5reasons:

1. Movement boosts engagement by breaking up the monotony of seated learning and helps keep students more focused and involved.
2. Movement enhances retention. Physical activity improves circulation which strengthens neural connections and makes it easier for kids to focus and remember concepts.
3. Movement supports different learning styles. Kinesthetic learners have a very difficult time with seated learner. It’s important to include them in your lesson planning too.
4. Movement improves classroom behavior. Students are less likely to become restless and distracted and therefore less likely to become disruptive.
5. Movement makes learning more fun! When students associate science class with enjoyable activities, they’re more likely to stay curious and engaged.

5 Movement Based Activities

Here are some movement based activities you can try this week!

Charades. Have students act out vocabulary terms for a quick brain break.

4 Corners. Label each of the corners of your classroom with the letters A through D and then ask a multiple choice question, asking students to move to the correct corner.

Walk and Talk. Instead of think-pair-share, having student pair up and walk around the room explaining a concept to each other.

Stations. Set up different stations around the room for students to explore concepts with hands on activities, mini-experiments, or review questions.

Gallery Walks. Introduce or reinforce a concept with photographs around the room such as graphs of climate change data or images of water pollution.

How do you get your kiddos up and around?

Learning science is a lot like learning a new language. The vocab can really bog a middle schooler down – even if they grasp the concept of Punnett squares, for example, words like homozygous and allele make success unachievable. Middle schoolers need engaging, interactive ways to reinforce new terms so they truly stick.

In this post, I’ll share quick, low-prep strategies that will get your students using and remembering key science terms without even realizing they’re studying. Whether you have five minutes before the bell rings or need a brain break activity, these ideas will help students build confidence with vocabulary in a way that feels more like play than work.

Create Anchor Charts or Word Walls. A brightly colored and illustrated word wall or anchor chart catches students eyes and reinforces vocab without students even realizing they’re learning. Bonus points if your students create them.

Concept Maps: Give students an opportunity to create their own visual diagram relating the terms in the unit.

Frayer Model: Use a template to have students define, draw a picture, and use each term in a sentence.

Comic Strips or Memes: Illustrate terms with images to help you remember them.

Mnemonics: We all know “My Very Educated Mother Just Served Us Nachos.” Have students create mnemonics for lists like metric prefixes or characteristics of minerals.

Self Checking Worksheets: Students build grit when they have the option for practice with feedback.

Escape Rooms: Students need to find clues and solve puzzles to “break out.” They won’t even realize they’re practicing their vocab.

Color by number worksheets offer practice and a little brain break while you’re at it. Try one for free by clicking here.

Play a Game:

• Charades – write vocab on index cards and have students work in pairs to act out terms for their classmates to guess.
• Pictionary – Let teams draw vocab terms on the white board for their partners to guess.
• Matching – write vocab term on index cards and write definitions on separate cards. After students match the terms, let them check each other’s work for additional reinforcement.
• Digital games like Kahoot, Quizlet Live, Boom Cards, and Blooket are favorites.
• I Have, Who Has is a fun whole class game that reinforces vocab easily.

What’s your favorite way to reinforce vocabulary?

Are your students ready to compete in March Mammal Madness?! Mine sure are – their older siblings have told them how much fun they’ll have and now they’re really excited to start!

What is March Mammal Madness?

March Mammal Madness (MMM), whose logo is “If you’re learning, you’re winning,” is a bracket-style competition modeled by Dr. Katie Hinde of Arizona State University after the NCAA basketball tournament. In this activity, students research 64 different species. Then Dr. Hinde and her team separate the 64 animals into four divisions and assign them seeds. The tournament begins in March with simulated “battles” that asks students to predict which of the two animals would win in a real life situation.

The simulated battles in MMM are based on the characteristics of the competing species. These battles are determined by some combination of:

• Overall survival strategy.

• Hunting and feeding habits;

• Reproductive strategies;

• Adaptation to different environments;

• Behavioral characteristics such as social behavior or communication methods.

Throughout the month of March, battles are live-tweeted (#2025MMM) and video recaps are produced 2-3 times per week. Students follow along on their brackets and earn points for each battle they correctly participated. We keep an advancing bracket in the back of our classroom and it becomes quite the subject of discussion.

Benefits of participating in March Mammal Madness

These battles in MMM are meant to be a fun and engaging way to teach students about different mammal species and the characteristics that make them unique. It also helps students develop critical thinking skills, teamwork, and collaboration among students.

The MMM activity is not just a fun and engaging way to teach students about different mammal species, but also helps students develop critical thinking skills. By having to consider multiple factors and make decisions based on evidence, students are forced to think critically about the information they are presented with.

Additionally, the activity helps to promote teamwork and collaboration among students. Often, students will work in small groups to research and make decisions about which species to advance. This allows students to share their knowledge and learn from one another, which can be especially helpful for students who may be struggling with the material.

One year, my kids love MMM so much that they created their own May Mammal Madness. They designed their own brackets, wrote the battles, and even made video recaps of each battle.

How can your class participate?

Participation is free – all of the materials are free online and a tremendous crowd sourced trove of goodies is collected and shared. Everything you need to know is on the official MMM website which can be found here.  

A freebie to get your class excited

I kicked off this year’s MMM tournament with a rousing game of animal kingdom trivia. Kids were so excited, and they are ready for the battles to begin!

If you’d like to play trivia with your students, click here to download my game! Just be sure to comment below and let me know what you thought!

Happy Darwin Day! Darwin Day is an annual celebration that honors the life and scientific contributions of Charles Darwin, the renowned naturalist best known for his groundbreaking work on the theory of evolution through natural selection. Held on February 12, Darwin’s birthday, this day serves as a global tribute to the profound impact his ideas have had on our understanding of biology, ecology, and the interconnectedness of life on Earth. Here are some ideas to help you celebrate Darwin Day in your middle school science classroom!

What is Darwin Day?

The purpose of Darwin Day goes beyond commemorating Darwin’s achievements; it also seeks to promote science, critical thinking, and intellectual curiosity.

Events associated with Darwin Day often include educational lectures, museum exhibits, film screenings, and community discussions about evolution, biodiversity, and the scientific method. These activities provide opportunities for individuals of all ages to engage with scientific ideas and celebrate the importance of evidence-based reasoning in addressing global challenges such as conservation and climate change.

By fostering a sense of wonder and respect for the diversity of life, Darwin Day encourages us to continue exploring the mysteries of nature and applying scientific insights to create a better future for all.

Celebrating Darwin Day in your middle school classroom

Here are some ideas you can use to bring Charles Darwin to life in your science class:

1. Evolution Timeline: Have students create a visual timeline of Darwin’s life and major milestones in evolutionary theory.
2. Play a game. Simulate natural selection with students acting as species adapting to different island environments. Through competition, have students discover how survival of the fittest works.
3. Natural Selection Simulation: Use colored paper and a background to mimic predator-prey dynamics (e.g., students act as predators picking off poorly camouflaged “prey”).
4. Take a virtual field trip to the Galapagos. Use virtual tours and web cams to simulate Darwin’s voyage and learn about Darwin’s discoveries.
5. Tree of Life Art Project: Create a large tree diagram showing the relationships between various species. Build a family tree showing human evolution.
6. Darwin’s Diary: Have students write diary entries from Darwin’s perspective during his voyage on the HMS Beagle.
7. Bird Beak Experiment: Simulate bird beak adaptations with tools (e.g., tweezers, spoons) and different “food” types (beans, rubber bands, etc.).
8. DNA Connections: Teach about shared genetics among species and have students explore DNA similarities using an online tool or visuals.
9. Examine case studies of observed natural selection. Learn about the evolution of the Peppered Moth.
10. Evolutionary Art: Challenge students to design a fictional organism adapted to a specific environment.
11. Study Mutations. Learn how mutations occur and drive natural selection in a stations activity.
12. Nature Walk: Explore local habitats and discuss how organisms are adapted to their environments.
13. Examine adaptations of various animals such as camouflage, hibernation, and self defense.
14. Science Comics: Let students create a comic strip explaining Darwin’s discoveries or an evolutionary concept in a fun way.

Natural Selection Activities