What are the effects of competition in an academic environment? The competition between the main characters in A Separate Peace motivates a series of activities that asks readers to take a stance on competition, and then to develop a...

Explore the works of Dr. Seuss, such as Horton Hears a Who, Horton Hatches and Egg, The Sneetches and Other Stories, The Lorax, The Butter Battle Book, and Yertle the Turtle and Other Stories. Each story lesson includes reading...

Facilitate learning by using small objects to teach the principles of atomic mass in your science class. Pupils determine the average mass of varying beans as they perform a series of competitive experiments. They gather data and...

Objection! Scholars participate in a mock trial to gain an understanding the ins and outs of court procedures. Using the Jessie Jones v. Palm City court case, they role play each specific part of the trial, learning how courts operate...

Get to know the class much better. Scholars brainstorm a topic of interest and then design and conduct a class survey. Using the top responses, they create a game similar to Family Feud and take part in a class competition.

Hop from country to country to practice knowledge of international capitals using an interactive video game. Pupils take control of frog avatars and direct them to leap from the name of a capital to its home country. The video game...

Young balladeers analyze examples of ballads and generate a list of common traits (story, quatrains, rhyme schemes, refrains, etc.), then identify these traits in Robert W. Service's "The Cremation of Sam McGee" and a ballad written by...

To wrap up your year of general chemistry, have lab groups compete in a tot wire chemical vapor deposition (HWCVD) competition. With their foundation in chemical nomenclature, stoichiometry, and gas laws, each group completes several...

Whether you're lost at sea, lost in the woods, or testing communication skills, teamwork is always important. Build your middle and high schoolers' cooperative and collaborative skills with four activities that prompts groups to compete...

Physicists become Olympians in a competition using centripetal force. They ride a bicycle to comprehend relationships between linear and rotational motion. If you have an old-fashioned record player, it can be used to help pupils...

Get some competition going in your life science class. Give lab groups a variety of plant parts, all of them fruits, except one. Their mission is to make observations, compare and contrast, in order to be the first to identify the...

Challenge young engineers to design a one-bedroom scale house to collect and maintain as much heat as possible. Particular constraints must be adhered to, but creativity is also allowed. Included is a diagram and background information...

What a find! Here is a lesson, designed to meet sixth grade math Common Core standards, that focuses on the calculation of different measures of center for the scores from a penalty shoot-out competition. An independent...

Why do athletes load up on carbohydrates the evening before a competition? The lesson helps answer this question as it relates the type of food to the amount of energy it contains. After a discussion, scholars perform an experiment...

Pupils explore the meaning of the ancient Greek word aretê and the place of virtue in historical athletic competition and modern sports. They begin by reading an informational text on the goal of sports in education, and then...

Add many seconds of beauty to your class with a short film and related project. The resource centers around a competition based on one-second segments of film, and the final compilation that came from the contest. Pupils identify...

Inspire teamwork in your classroom with a fun group activity. Peers pass a penny from the back of their hand to their classmate's hand, who passes it down the line, and see who wins the competition.

The first part of this article by PBS on the Miss America pageants can be used in a health class when it's time to talk about body image. There are links to related articles. There are some great questions for discussion. There are ideas...

Walk, jog, or run across America. Maps of individual states, visual progress, competition, and rewards, seem to be great motivational ideas. Make sure that the distances that each class has to walk or run are the same, because getting...

Learners of all ages can practice their spelling abilities by participating in a fun group game. They utilize a pile of letters written on paper to "build" a word instructed by the teacher. The fastest pair of spellers wins a point!...

Explore reciprocal questioning with this ReQuest comprehension strategy. After reading a passage, learners first question the teacher, trying to "stump" her. Then it is the teacher's turn to ask the pupils questions. All correct answers...

“. . . one of the great challenges to humanity is acknowledging and overcoming a natural tendency to think less of and discriminate against people who are different from us . . .” Launch an examination of competition and cooperation, of...

After reading up on the history of sports racquets, engineering teams design and construct a racquet for batting a Velcro-striped ball at a target. Teams evaluate their design by aiming for the target three times each and answering...

Why not review for that chemistry test with a little healthy classroom competition? With a fun and interactive Jeopardy-style game, you can adjust the number of teams, keep track of scores, and even make your own test if the provided...