About this resource
5 mystery-driven Science Unlocked lesson sets for middle school (grades 6-8), about 5 weeks of thermal energy instruction. Each set opens with a real, surprising phenomenon, builds the science one level at a time, and ends with students cracking the case in a claim-evidence-reasoning (CER) write-up.
Topics: thermal energy, chemical reactions, heat energy, heat transfer, thermal energy transfer, engineering design process, claim evidence reasoning (CER), science phenomenon, review games.
Bundle price: $12.50 for 5 sets ($2.50 a set). Bought one at a time, these sets cost $15.
Sets in this bundle
- Hot Meal, No Flame (MS-PS1-6, Exothermic & Endothermic Design). Soldiers add a splash of water to a thin pouch, slide in a sealed meal, and wait. About 12 minutes later the food is steaming hot — with no fire, no stove, and no batteries. Where does the heat come from — and how did engineers make it hot enough, fast enough, but not too hot?
- Cooking With Sunlight (MS-PS3-3, Thermal Energy Transfer Design). A folded sheet of cardboard covered in kitchen foil cooks rice and beans with no fire, no fuel, and no electricity. How can cardboard and foil cook a meal — and can your team design a solar oven that meets the criteria?
- The Pizza Burn (MS-PS3-4, Thermal Energy, Mass & Specific Heat). The cheese, the sauce, and the crust all baked in the same oven. So why does the cheese burn the roof of your mouth when the crust doesn’t?
- Just Cold Enough (MS-ETS1-1, Engineering Design: Criteria & Constraints). A health worker packs vaccines with ice packs straight from the freezer for a long walk to a village with no electricity. The vaccines never get warm — yet some doses are ruined. What went wrong, and how should engineers define this problem so it never happens again?
- Five Layers of Cool (MS-ETS1-4, Iterative Testing & Modeling Design). NASA’s Webb telescope hides behind a sunshield the size of a tennis court. Its five layers are each thinner than a hair, yet its Sun side nears boiling while the telescope behind it cools to about −233 °C. No test chamber on Earth was big enough to test the whole shield that cold — so how did engineers know it would work, and why five layers?
Every set includes
- An editable Teacher Deck with answers highlighted and speaker notes (what to say, support and GT tips).
- An interactive Student Deck (PowerPoint + PDF) where students type, drag and rate their confidence.
- Google Slides versions of both decks, with make-a-copy links.
- A Teacher Guide with a run-of-show for every level, materials, misconceptions, answer keys and sources.
- A Student Printable in 12 pt type, plus a low-ink greyscale copy, for paper days and sub days.
- A self-grading digital activity: SCORM 2004, SCORM 1.2, a web package and a single HTML file.
- Two whole-class review games (Jeopardy-style and Trashketball), plus Kahoot! and Blooket import files with an answer key.
- Leveled lessons with "I can" targets, notes, practice, checkpoints, exit tickets, a Mini Quiz and a Stretch beyond grade level.
By the numbers
- 5 one-week units, each with 5-6 levels (about one 45-50 minute class per level).
- 5 of the 5 sets include a hands-on lab with a materials list and safety notes.
- 256 Kahoot!/Blooket review questions across the bundle.
Try the digital activity first
- Not sure the self-grading activity will work in your LMS? Download the FREE HTML & SCORM Sample and test it with your students before you buy.
Save more
- Middle School Physical Science + Engineering (23 sets, $46)
- Science Unlocked Mega Bundle (89 sets, $133.50)
More from Mystery Lab Learning
- See every Science Unlocked set, and follow to hear when new ones are added, at Mystery Lab Learning.
Good to know
- When a set in this bundle is updated, you get the update for free in My Purchases.
- The illustrations in these resources were created with AI image tools, and AI tools helped draft the lesson text. Every slide, answer key and lab step was then fact-checked against the sources listed in each Teacher Guide and proofread.
- Kahoot!, Blooket, Jeopardy!, Google Slides and PowerPoint are trademarks of their owners. These resources are not affiliated with or endorsed by them.
- License: one teacher, for use with their own students. Please buy an additional license for each colleague who uses it.
