Great Teaching Ideas

What is the Great Teaching Ideas Program?

The Great Teaching Ideas program is a free resource for Missouri Teachers providing useful lesson plans and teaching activities. Missouri teachers submit their own units and lessons to SuccessLink via an online submission form. These lessons are then reviewed by curriculum specialist. Approved lessons are posted on the SuccessLink Web site for all teachers to freely print and use with their own curriculum. Lessons are aligned to the Missouri Show Me Standards as well as the new Missouri Grade Level Expectations, content ranges from kindergarten through twelfth grade in all subjects.

The SuccessLink Web site has a database of over 2000 lessons. Three incentive programs encourage submission of lessons. These are graduate credit courses, an approved Career Ladder activity and a monthly cash award program.

Showcase Lessons for the month of May 2008.

 This month we will feature science lessons and activities.

See the Showcase Archive

• Butterflies

  With this MAP module, students answer questions, complete a diagram, compare a butterfly to an ant, and write a paragraph explaining what it would be like to be a butterfly--stages of metamorphosis

• Frogs in the Pond

  Students will use a variety of literature discussing frogs, their life cycle, their habitat, their environment and the effects of pollution.

• Insect Unit

  This is a hands-on unit developed to study insects by exploring the life cycles of beetles and butterflies -- mealworms, writing, insects

• 1 + 1 = Lots of Bunnies

  Demonstrates the effects of overpopulation on resource demand.

• Aquatic (pond) Ecology

  A Science Event Day

• Grow Germs Grow

  Students learn the effectiveness of several mouthwashes on killing germs. -- science

• Autobiography of a Parasite

  Students write about their adventures as parasitic worms seeking completion of their life cycles--tapeworms, flukes, roundworms

• Blowin' in the Wind

  Physics students create a wind chime with harmonic tuning.

• Investigating Irises

  Students will investigate irises to study plant adaptations, reproduction, and transpiration--biology, experiment, data collection, analysis

• Float Your Boat

  A fun kindergarten task event for young children to experiment with mass and volume.