Kids@PortNet

Science Grade Level 6

Understanding Living Things

Cells
This site will allow students to take a closer look at the structure and function of a cell.  Clicking on the illustration will give complete and detailed information.  

Cell Inspector  
This activity allows students to match the correct cellular label to the correct cell part. Students can generate new cells to work with. 

 
Animal Cell Mitosis   
This animation allows students to see the stages of mitosis in an animal cell. 
 
Meiosis Animation  
Students can see an animation of meiosis and take a quiz about it when they are finished.  Lesson 2
 
 Family Ties    
Students learn how traits are passes down from parents to children.  Page includes information about Mendel's experiment, Punnett Squares, and more.  Lesson 3
 
Children resemble their parents  
What are genes made of? What are chromosomes made of? Is that the same thing? Can I see DNA?  What do I get from my parents besides lectures?  How do genes make me who I am? Are all people made of the same genes? Start here to take a Tour of the Basics! (requires Flash plugin and a little patience while it loads).  Entire tour includes these tour topics: What is DNA? What is a gene? What is a chromosome?  What is inheritance? What is a protein? What is mitosis/meiosis?  
 

Living Things Grow and Respond

Seed Germination 
This award winning site covers germination, non-flowering plants and seeds.  The site contains a glossary, activities, and links to other related sites.  Students roll play as detectives as they work through each case they are presented. 
 
Vascular Plants  
This animation allows students to see how material flows through a plant.  
 
Germination, Tropisms, and More  
Each movie shows time lap photography examples of germination, tropism, photo-tropism, and more. 
 

Types of Plants
 
Mosses  
This web page describes the interesting characteristics of mosses.  There are links to other interesting sites about mosses at the bottom of the page. 
 
About Ferns 
Students can learn about ferns, how they reproduce and what makes them different than other vascular plants.
 
What are the parts of a flower?
Students learn the different parts of a flower and then solve a plant mystery.
 
Seed Structure 
Students learn about seed structure and then solve a plant mystery.
 
 

Invertebrates
 
Vertebrates  
Students can click on a picture or name of an animal for more information about the animal's characteristics.  There are links to other sites and exhibits. 
 
Invertebrates   
Students can click on a picture or name of an animal for more information about the animal's characteristics.  There are links to other sites and exhibits. 

The Shape of Life  
Students click on an animal to gather information about sponges, worms, mollusks, and more.
 
All About Birds 
This page has information about the characteristics of birds, classification, and bird extremes (largest, smallest, & more).
 

The Living Planet
Journey Through Biodiversity  
Students examine the biological diversity of the Smokey River Valley in north western Alberta, Canada.  The abiotic and biotic factors that come into play are explained.
 
Arctic Coastal Plain  
Students can tour the ecosystems of the Arctic Coastal Plain to see how life survives there. 

The World's Biomes  
This page introduces the major biomes on Earth.  Aquatic, Deserts, Forests, Grasslands, and Tundra Biomes are detailed.
 
Water Cycle
Students can envision the water cycle by following a drip of water
around as it moves on its way. They could really begin this story anywhere along the cycle, but the ocean is where the story begins since that is where most of Earth's water is.  Students can click on the Water Cycle Graphic to view or print it. 
 
On the Resource Trail  
This activity page allows students to play a game to identify which resource is being  used.  Chapter Review
 

Interactions in Ecosystems

Ecosystem Interactions   
This site covers: Roles of organisms in an ecosystem
Energy flow through ecosystems Food Webs and Chains - How can we create a food web for a particular ecosystem?   This site includes an examples.  Lesson 1

Earth's Ocean 

What Does the Ocean Floor Look Like?   
This site contains graphics, maps, and interactive animations that helps students visualize what the ocean floor looks like.  
 
Atoll formation 
This site contains interactive graphics from NASA that allows students to observe islands in various stages of atoll formation.  
 
 
Reading Weather Maps
This page helps students understand the surface change symbols and the systems they show on the weather map.  There are links to other guides to weather maps and reports and links to weather prediction pages too.
 
Weather Wiz Kids   
This page explains which weather instrument measures what, and how the instrument works. This site also includes information on all aspects of weather including hurricanes, tornadoes, winter storms, and much more. 

Weather Watch   
This interactive site from Scholastic allows students to 'test drive' the tools meteorologists use every day. Students click on each tool for more information along with instructions on building it and using it in an experiment.

Hurricanes
This page from the FEMA site designed for elementary students covers the history, tracking,  classification facts, videos of past hurricanes, and much more more.  
Tornadoes
This page designed for elementary students by FEMA gives detailed information about  tornadoes including precautions that can be taken.  

 
 

Cycles in Earth and Space
 
Savage Earth   
This animated site, from PBS, explains how the Earth works, it has information about the layers of the Earth.  
 
The Earth  
These web pages about the Earth, from Enchanted Learning, provide information and activities about the inside of the Earth, plates, movements and more. & 2 

Plate Tectonics 
This web page, from NASA's Classroom of the Future, explains the theory of plate tectonics and all about Convergent, Divergent and Transform Boundaries.  There are links to other Earth topics too.
 
Earthquakes  
This site, established by the US Geological Survey, is designed specifically for kids. It includes earthquake history, FAQs, locations, career info, and preparation ideas. The site also includes tons of links for kids, teachers, and grown-ups to information, history, specific quakes, and projects.
 
Volcanoes  
This very complete site about volcanoes explains how volcanoes form, volcanism, eruptions, and  introduces the different kinds of volcanoes. 
 
Rock Formation  
Students view online animations to see how igneous, sedimentary, and metamorphic rocks are formed.  There are examples of each rock type to view along with their descriptions. 
 
Sedimentary Rocks on Mars  
Students can search this site by using the Search Box on the upper left side of the page for information about Sedimentary Rocks found on Mars.  There are great pictures from NASA's Global Surveyor!
 
Solar System Bodies 
This Solar System Exploration page links to information about the sun, asteroids, meteoroids, comets, Kuiper belt objects, as well information about each planet.  Information is presented in two formats and students can click on a kid-friendly version of each page if they choose to.  The kid-friendly version has additional activities for students.
 
Exploring the Planets 
This site presented by the National Air and Space Museum helps students learn about our solar system.  The site highlights the history and achievements of planetary explorations.  Students learn about what early civilizations knew about our solar system and how astronomy developed over the centuries.  There is also an individual  online section that gives an overview of what has been learned about each planet, asteroids and comets. 
 
 
Earth and Moon Viewer 
Students can view either a map of the Earth showing the day and night regions at this moment, or view the Earth from the Sun, the Moon, the night side of the Earth, above any location on the planet specified by latitude, longitude and altitude, from a satellite in Earth orbit, or above various cities around the globe.  
 
Life and Death of Stars  
This site examines the birth and death of stars and has Hubble pictures with text links that explain the photos. 
 
Galaxies   
This page gives detailed information about each type of galaxy.  There are also links on this page to information about typical objects that most galaxies contain and a link to a page on the Milky Way.
 
Galaxies Galore and More   
These web pages contain several online explorations and fun activities for students to complete.  They can build our Milky Way, Explore Galaxies, and play Galaxy Games. 
 
Solar System Exploration  
This inclusive site from NASA includes several topic links. Students can find information about the solar system, space missions and much more at this site. 
 

Matter and Energy

Structure of an Atom 
This page describes the three pieces that make up an atom.  Electron, Proton, and Neutron characteristics and movement is explained.
 
Isotopes  
The definition and characteristics of an Isotope is presented on this page.  There are links to information about atom bonding, compound basics and compound naming with examples. 
 
Elements  
This site covers everything about Elements.  The Periodic Chart, Element List and Families are all explained.  There is also an overview of metals and their characteristics. 
 
States of Matter  
This page describes the main states of matter and the physical change that allows matter to change from one state to another. 
 
Plasma Basics  
Characteristics and examples of plasma are explored on this page. 
 
Mixture and Solutions  
Students learn about mixtures and solutions at the Chem4Kids site.  They learn what they are and how they are held together.
 
 

Energy
  
Magnetism 
This NASA site examines the history of Magnetism, what it is, and how it works.  There are links to pages on the Magnetosphere, Magnetic Field Lines, and Electromagnetic Waves.
 

Sound and Light
  
Wave Motion Animations  
There are animations of Longitudinal, Transverse, and Water Waves on this page. (advanced reading level) 
 
Sound  
This article contains an explanation of the relationship between frequency, wavelength, and pitch. 
 
Electromagnetic Waves  
Students learn about electromagnetic waves on this web page, there are animations and interactive activities that allow students a "hands-on" approach to learning.

Forces and Machines

Gravity  
Students begin to learn about gravity on this introduction to gravity page.  They learn about independence of motion, falling masses, weightlessness, and how gravity changes with altitude too.  Lesson 1Forces and Machines Chapter 1- Forces and Motion  Gravity Students begin to learn about gravity on this introduction to gravity page.  They learn about independence of motion, falling masses, weightlessness, and how gravity changes with altitude too. 
 
Gravity Activity 
This activity allows students to see how gravity affects weight on different planets. 
 
Newton's Laws of Motion 
The three laws of motion are presented on this page.  After students have read about the laws of motion they can follow a link to find the answer to the following question.  If forces are always equal and opposite, how can anything move? 
 
Forces  
Students examine forces and motion at this web site.  Gravity, friction,
speed and velocity, acceleration and more are explained.  There are animated and interactive graphics used to reinforce learning. 
 
Simple Machines 
The examples and activities on this page help students understand how simple machines make work easier.

Simple & Compound Machines   
Students explore two different virtual environments to learn about simple or compound machines.  Each activity allows students to find and identify machines within the environments.  There is a teacher's guide to use with the site and a pre and post test too.