Free, Interdisciplinary Lessons
We strive to create mind-expanding learning experiences that a non-specialist can teach in any G5-12 classroom with 15 minutes of prep time!
Galactic Polymath Mini-Unit Releases
Each unit has 2-6 lessons created through 100s of collaborative hours by scientists, teachers, artists, and filmmakers.
And they're all free!
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Fairywrens and the Art of Inquiry
How do scientists pick a question to study?
Future Foods
Can we reduce the carbon footprint of our favorite meals?
Data Streams
A crash course in data literacy using stream ecology
Photon Engineers
Tinkering with Light
Mā te rauhiringa tātou e ora: Powerful Solutions
How do we provide sustainable energy to communities?
Pacific H2O
A Choose-Your-Own STEM Adventure
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Balancing Act
Tradeoffs in frogs, humans, and other animals
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Hybrid Zones
Evolution's Testing Grounds
Heard That Bird
A Pop Culture Intro to Birding by Ear
SciJourneys
Building Resilience in Science
Bioinspired Design
Looking to Biology for Better Solutions
Animal Collective
How group behavior can produce surprising problems...and solutions!
Electric Crystals
Exploring how crystal symmetry can power everyday life
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I Like That!
How perception, emotion, and cognition shape our preferences
Colorful Solutions
Chemical Engineering Dyes to Brighten Lives
Guardian Frogs of Borneo
Why Exceptions Matter in Biology and Everyday Life
Genetic Rescue to the Rescue
Preventing extinction through gene flow
Females singing to be heard
Challenging long-held assumptions about birdsong through data visualization
Made open access by these funding organizations and research institutions:
Galactic Polymath Learning Tools
Jobviz Career Explorer
A starting point for students to explore 1,000 job possibilities
Powering the Marae
Use this interactive web game to define a robust power mix for the fictional community at Punahiko Marae.
PacificH2O Interactive Web App
A Choose-Your-Own Adventure app that mediates a blended learning lab. Students identify & remove impurities in water samples as they embody different STEM career roles.
"Swimming in the Dark"
Run digital experiments to understand fish schooling.
"EchoSim" Echo Chamber Simulation
Explore how different human variables (like tolerance) affect social media networks.
SoundLab
A free web app for visualizing and exploring sounds! A gateway for students to get curious about birdsongs, frog calls, and the science of sound.Galactic Polymath Videos
Galactic Polymath Individual Lessons
Free lessons to engage students in current research, real world problems, and interdisciplinary thinking.
What Are You Eating?
Build data literacy by exploring the carbon footprint of food
Part of: Future Foods
Food For Thought
Analyzing the carbon footprint of your favorite dish
Part of: Future Foods
Manipulating with materials: The path of light beams
Students create a model to explain the behavior of light inside materials, then use a simulation to explore reflection and refraction properties.
Part of: Photon Engineers
PPSTT: The secrets of interpreting data
A step by step procedure for interpreting a graph developed with scientists.
Part of: Data Streams
Are streams wet? Practicing data literacy with flow data
Students use the PPSTT method to compare and contrast streamflow data from 5 locations to solve a mystery. Lesson guided by scientists doing the same activity.
Part of: Data Streams
Life is full of tradeoffs
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Explore tradeoffs between speed and endurance, size and survival of offspring and other examples in this data literacy activity.
Part of: Balancing Act