While cities had only a small fraction of the population in colonial America, they played a significant role in pre-revolutionary years, and this was certainly true for the largest city in the North American colonies: Philadelphia. Your...

Accompany the story, Town Mouse Country Mouse by Jan Brett with an assortment of activities designed to reinforce concepts covering story structure, comprehension, grammar, and social studies. Here, scholars identify the difference...

Urban spaces are often overlooked and broken down. Offer your pupils the opportunity to reimagine an urban space. Learners examine and discuss works of art related to this theme and consider their own communities. Small groups then...

Cities are compared to living, breathing, metabolizing organisms. Fourth in a five-part series of lessons, this one focuses on the flow of materials through a city. Links to interesting websites and images make your delivery of...

Besides serving as awe-inspiring monuments of human achievement, skyscrapers are built to perform a wide range of functions in urban communities. The second lesson in this series begins by exploring the history of the Empire State...

Young citizens construct an understanding of urban planning in this cross-curricular unit. Covering every aspect of city development from the political, economic, and social influences to sustainable building practices, this...

What makes a community? How communities differ? Young scholars research different types of communities, small rural towns, and large crowded cities. They respond to writing prompts, and write essays in groups to understand the wide...

Kinesthetic activities simulate animal activity as the seasons progress in a lesson that introduces climate change to primary pupils. The kids role-play maple trees collecting what they need to survive, but as each year comes...

Human migration—often the result of push and pull factors—sometimes has dramatic outcomes for both those leaving their homelands and the host countries. Using a variety of case studies, learners consider those issues. Then, by completing...

Develop critical thinkers and awareness of the media's techniques. Impressionable minds analyze advertisements they see all around them in this potentially 3-week long unit of five complete lesson plans. Extended discussions, outside...

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...

Want to teach your pupils about debate, effective speech techniques, propaganda, and the women's movement? The first in a sequential series of three, scholars analyze real propaganda images from the the historic women's movement, view a...

Here is a fascinating human geography study of the Zabbaleen. They are a sub-class of people who work as garbage collectors in Cairo, Egypt. I can't say enough good things about this resource in my limited space here. It is fabulous! If...

Could you live without your phone? What about cars, steel, or clothing? Class groups collaborate to produce presentations that argue that either the telephone, the gramophone, the automobile, the textile industry, or the steel...