The following ideas are offered as enrichments for a first grade inquiry on magnetism. Teachers who want to gather a supply of iron fillings to use for further investigations about magnetic poles may want their students to do the collecting by using the process described in the site listed below. The students can separate the iron fillings from the sand or soil by using a permanent magnet. It's best to put the magnet in a zippered clear baggie to avoid the clinging dust. The collected ore can be used effectively for classroom explorations.
Middle school seems to be the poor stepchild in the development process.
However, in an astronomy unit in which my students have been involved for almost two months now, we used the Internet very effectively to research information about a constellation. Additionally, they also had to know something about the myth associated with their constellation. The latter also has some excellent links. The challenge was getting them to effectively chart the needed information that they found so they could evaluate it to build their model. This was a valuable learning experience for all of us.