Science activities for substitute teachers need to be educational but also somewhat simple to teach.
Teachers must plan activities that will be available to someone who takes their place if they miss a day of work. Although teachers can use a modified version of their regular lesson plan for a substitute teacher, science teachers often must rearrange their plans completely for a substitute. Substitute teachers cannot be expected to supervise experiments, lab equipment or explosive elements and expensive equipment. Science teachers need a variety of resources to use as activities for substitute teachers.
Science Research
For a general science activity any time of the year, students can use computers, the school media center or encyclopedias and textbooks to research the branches of science, famous scientists and their inventions or discoveries, and the history of a particular branch of science, such as chemistry or astronomy. Students can even use this information to write questions for their classmates to answer during class or on a future class assignment.
Fast Food Nutrition
Students can go online and research daily nutritional recommendations from the Food and Drug Administration. They can then research the websites of a variety of fast food restaurants and list in spreadsheet form the calories, fat, sodium, cholesterol and carbohydrates found in popular menu items. They can use this information to come up with recommendations for healthy eating choices at these restaurants and display this information on a poster or slide-show presentation.
Question Based Inquiry
Students can practice answering constructive questions in this lesson plan. The substitute holds a container full of relevant science topics and allows each student to choose one topic from the container. The student must come up with at least 10 questions about his topic, using a variety of question words and detailed information. For instance, instead of asking, "What is astronomy?" he might ask, "What is the history of astronomy?" or "Who first determined that astronomy was a branch of science?" Students can use their textbooks, the Internet, encyclopedias and other reference sources to find the answers to their questions.
A Day in the Life
For elementary-school children, the entire day can focus on a particular type of animal, such as ocean animals or zoo animals. When students enter the classroom, the substitute teacher will put the name or picture of an animal on their backs. They must ask yes or no questions of their classmates to discover what animal they are. For the rest of the day that animal will guide their activities. Students will work in groups based on animal types such as cats or mammals, line up based on animal attributes and work together in centers based on the first letter of their animal name. They can play games with animal sounds and movements, such as "Simon Says." They can read stories about animals at story time and color animal pictures during arts and crafts. The whole day becomes a science activity that is fun for the students and the substitute teacher.
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