David Binnington's mural commemorating the 1936 Battle of Cable Street is the focus of a lesson that looks at public art as a form of civic participation. After reading background material about the mural, individuals analyze a segment...

What is a ‘Zine? Although the referenced PBS video that launches this study of self-published magazines is not available, the activities detailed and the step-by-step directions for creating ‘Zines would engage young writers. This...

As part of a study of the December 7, 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor, young historians imagine the feelings of those who lived during the attack by creating a word cloud of 10 words they think express the emotions of people at that time....

How did the Emancipation Proclamation lead to the Thirteenth Amendment? Middle schoolers analyze primary source documents including the text of the Emancipation Proclamation, political cartoons, photographs, and prints to understand...

In a comprehensive role playing activity, teens play the parts of different stakeholders in the realm of acidic oceans. They research, debate, and create a presentation from the perspective of either ocean organisms, the fishing...

“It was a miracle.” Basil Heatter’s “The Long Night of the Little Boats,” which details the miraculous rescue of the British army from the shores of Dunkirk in 1940, is featured in a series of exercises that ask class members to read,...

What is a good citizen? Here is a fantastic unit of ten lessons that will thoroughly cover the concept of civics and citizenship in your class. Examples of activities include learning stations, primary and secondary source analysis of...

As an introduction to the skills required for and responsibilities of driving, pre-teens and teens engage in a series of activities, chart their response times, and analyze how variables effect these reaction times. Class...

Thinking of assigning a research paper? Get writers off on the right foot with a lesson that introduces the BEAM research model. Writers brainstorm the background of their topic, explicate the aspects of their topic, consider the...

Biotechnology is big! Introduce the uses of biotechnology to science scholars with a fascinating, fact-filled unit. The first installment in a series of four biotechnology units covers the role biotechnology plays in human and...

Fair use, intellectual property, public domain ... what does it all mean? Scholars act as judges to determine if different scenarios constitute fair use. They also advance their research skills by practicing paraphrasing and citing...

A unit study of the importance of a free press in a democracy begins with class members listening to a podcast featuring two journalists, one from a United States public radio station and one from Capetown, South Africa. The lesson,...

Radical Reconstruction, the 10-year period referred to after Congress passed the Reconstruction Act of 1867, saw the establishment of manhood suffrage, men voting without any racial qualifications. Southern states also rewrote their...

Here's a great resource for your curriculum library. The 240-page packet, organized into units by topics, includes sample lesson plans, links to primary and secondary source documents, worksheets, activities, and sample assessments.

Using methods adopted by Public Policy Analysts (PPA) class groups define a social problem, gather evidence to document the existence of the problem, identify causes, evaluate existing policies designed to deal with the problem, develop...

In a comprehensive project, teen ecologists read case studies to learn about successful conservation programs, then work together to research an ecosystem. The project culminates with either an in-class presentation about a conservation...

A great resource for your unit on Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart. Small groups conduct research about related topics (list included), write papers, present PowerPoint slide shows, and take a student-created test. Fill in a few...

Confirmation bias makes it difficult to overcome our preconceived notions of others. That's the big idea in a lesson that teaches learners strategies to recognize and question their biases.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has developed a tremendous library of ocean-themed lessons that can be used in a variety of science settings. "Feeding in the Flow" is one of those activities; Its focus is on...

"Love it or leave it." "You're either for us or against us." Rhetoric and it's polarizing effects are the focus of a lesson that uses John Brown's attack on Harper's Ferry as an exemplar. Groups examine primary source documents,...

The power of a picture. During the events surrounding World War I, propaganda posters were widely distributed in American society to sway the emotions of its citizens. By analyzing World War I propaganda posters in the first installment...

Whether new to teaching Beowulf or an experience pro, you'll find much to like in a richly detailed unit plan that asks readers to consider how the epic represents the difficulty in defining good and evil but also reflects the changing...

Space, the Final Frontier. The nine NASA-created challenges in this unit are designed to teach class members the engineering design process. Each challenge comes with teacher and student pages that can be used individually or as a...

Excerpts from John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath and from John Fante's Ask the Dust, as well as a variety of primary source documents provide the background for an examination of the migrant experience from 1920-1945.