Teaching Tolerance
Collage of Concerns
A picture can speak louder than words. An interesting lesson introduces the themes of social justice and diversity to young learners by having them create artwork. Scholars create collages from a variety of sources to showcase what...
Curated OER
Emotion Card Games
Emotions come in all shapes and sizes, and can be difficult for young learners or students with special needs to identify. Support them in gaining the valuable social skill of recognizing emotions and understanding empathy with this...
Curated OER
Paper Fortune Tellers for Exploring Upsetting Emotions
What kinds of thoughts help us to cope with problems and approach difficult situations? Support learners on the autism spectrum in exploring their emotions and considering the connection between our thoughts and our feelings using one of...
Teaching Tolerance
Consuming and Creating Political Art
A picture is worth a thousand words, but political art may be worth even more! After examining examples of political cartoons, murals, and other forms of public art, class members create their own pieces to reflect their ideals and...
Just Health Action
Whose Backyard? Toxic Waste Management Meeting and Environmental Injustice
Toxic waste is a global problem. What to do with environmental hazards and where to put toxic waste is a global concern. To better understand current issues around toxic waste management and how current practices can lead to...
Facing History and Ourselves
Why Little Things Are Big
Often our decisions are impacted by a fear of how others see us. That's the big idea in a two-day lesson that asks how false assumptions, how our fear of how others may see us, impact how we act. After watching a video about such a...
Teaching Tolerance
Inventing a Better World
From play pumps that provide clean water to shoes made from trash, innovators change the world one invention at a time. After researching various inventions, young entrepreneurs develop their own. Extension opportunities include prompts...
Curated OER
Show That You Care
Learners on the autism spectrum can have difficulty expressing care or providing emotional support for others. Support them with this series of presentation slides that break down the steps to showing others you care, from appropriate...
PBS
Robot Body Language
Don't be so emotional! Scholars take part in an activity where they consider how future robots will be able to show emotions. They place paper bags over their heads, act out emotions through body movements, and have others guess the...
Curated OER
Giving Thanks Placemats
Students engage in a instructional activity that is concerned with the concept of Thanksgiving. They conduct research using a variety of resources and the information is used in order to create the context for brainstorming reasons to be...
Facing History and Ourselves
Compass Points
Needs, Suggestions, Excitement, and Worries. A Compass Points worksheet asks pupils to give feedback on that day's lesson. Learners identify what they need from the instructor and classmates, what excites them about the class, what...
American Psychological Association
A Silent National Crisis: Violence Against Teachers
School violence is becoming an epidemic in America. How can schools protect their teachers—and teach them how to protect their students? Read an important brochure about how violence affects teachers personally, emotionally, financially,...
American Psychological Association
Teaching Is Fundamental
It's important for teachers to have a strong support system—especially in the first few years of their career. Help teachers' partners, spouses, and friends understand the most compassionate ways to provide emotional support with a...
Curated OER
Compliments and Feelings
How do you feel when you get a compliment? Give a compliment? After modeling how to make explicit compliments (“I like the way . . .”) ask class members to practice saying nice things about themselves and others, and to consider how...
Curated OER
Growing on My Own, Kids on the Grow
Learners participate in an after school program that promotes critical thinking, concern for others, recognizing differences, accepting differences, self-motivation and personal safety. They cover how kids develop, expressing different...
Curated OER
EXPRESSIONIST ART LESSON
Sixth graders design and compose a picture that conveys a specific emotion or feeling, and recognize the use of emotion in a variety of artworks using crayons and/or pastels. They experiment and manipulate elements of art including, line...
Curated OER
Growing in Communities, Kids on the Grow
Students participate in an after school program that promotes concern for others, recognizing differences, accepting differences, leadership roles, mentoring, self-responsibility and personal safety. They explore the diversity of their...
Curated OER
Rockin’ the World: Rock and Roll and Social Protest in 20th Century America
Students explore protest songs. In this interdisciplinary lesson, students examine issues-based music by summarizing lyrics and revealing inferences, generalizations, conclusions, and points of view found in the songs.
Curated OER
Understanding Different Views on Death
A thought-provoking lesson presents how different cultures view death. Upper elementary through high school pupils engage in a series of activities that will leave them with a new understanding of how death is dealt with globally....
Curated OER
Puberty
Introduce the topic of puberty. This presentation breaks it down into bite-sized pieces: physical changes, mental changes, emotional changes, and social changes. There is some basic information in each section, which hopefully opens it...
Curated OER
How Would You Feel?
Sixth graders put themselves in the shoes of aborigines who were displaced from their homes in the 1800s by Europeans who came in and took their land from them. They discuss the social injustices suffered by these people, and write a...
Curated OER
Assertiveness/Self-Confidence
Students explore the concepts of assertiveness and self-confidence. They observe that is is all right to say no. Students discuss what it means to be assertive and how it takes inner strength and self-confidence to be assertive. They...
Curated OER
Keith Haring Tables
Students view the artwork of Keith Haring and relate it to social pressures that they deal with. In this art and social awareness lesson plan, students view images of tables made by Keith Haring. They paint images of social pressures...
Curated OER
What Is Happening in Haiti?
Students discuss the 2010 earthquake in Haiti and empathize with the victims of the disaster. For this 2010 Haitian earthquake lesson, students learn about the history and hardship the country has consistently faced. They watch clips...