By studying Benjamin Franklin's work as a printer, your class will have a fantastic opportunity to learn about the economic concepts of entrepreneurship, human capital, and investment. 

Scholars know him for his role in the American Revolution, but Ben Franklin was also a journalist and printer. Learners investigate his standards for what was fit to print using primary sources—including writings where Franklin explains...

What's the best way to collect all that trash? A culminating activity has scholars use the knowledge and skills from the unit to design a solution to the plastic trash island problem. They use 3-D pens or a 3-D printer to build models of...

THINKGREEN has a computer printer cartridge collection program. After reading the story of how Assumption Secondary School in Burlington, Ontario started participating in the THINKGREEN recycling program, pupils work in groups of...

Give a new meaning behind X's and O's! Play a Valentine's Day inspired game of tic tac toe equipped with hearts in each square. 

Who says playing around in class is a bad idea? Precocious physicists engage in building mechanisms that include cams, gears, pulleys, and levers using an interactive lesson. After completing toy tutorials about each topic, users build a...

Analyze, strategize, synthesize! Scholars analyze informative consumer guides to determine what features to include in their own guides. Next, pupils select charts and images to use in their guides.

Reinforce literacy skills using a six-sided die that focuses on phonics and story starters. Scholars roll, and show what they know about blends, plots, and more! 

"How can a few good words save a pig's life?" Posed with this question, your ELD students explore E.B. White's Charlotte's Web in a meaningful, valuable way. By analyzing specific word choice from the book, especially the excerpts...

Learning to analyze language, symbols, and codes is part of becoming a deep and critical thinker. Young analysts consider their ability to see hidden messages as they analyze the work of Paul Chan. There are two fully developed...

“All the world’s a stage,” exclaims Jaques in As You Like It, but it is the structure of the Globe stage and how that structure influenced Shakespeare’s plays that is the focus of an on-line research project. Class members visit a series...

“Is this a dagger which I see before me . . .” As part of a study of Macbeth, class members engage in a series of activities that get them up and moving. Individuals practice, then deliver, a line from the Scottish play. The entire class...

Genetics learners read an article and watch a video about personalized medicine and the hope it holds for treating patients more specifically than doctors currently are able to. They research, design, and produce a brochure about the...

Here is a 20-box bingo card to use when exploring ways that humans impact the environment. Various environmentally aware activities are listed in the boxes, and learners circulate the room to find someone who practices the different...

Around 93 percent of the reefs on Australia's Great Barrier Reef have been bleached, and almost one quarter of them are now dead. Scholars research the sea temperatures, especially around the areas with coral reefs, to make connections...

The 20th lesson in a 21-part series connects the wind data and expectations of a turbine to whether such devices should be built in your area. Scholars begin with estimating the wind potential at school by using long-term climate...

High schoolers create a silk scarf with digital images transfered onto it. They print out photos for transfer and stretch out the scarf on a frame. They paint the scarf and apply a resist for texture. The results are stunningly...

Give your guided reading lesson plan a boost with a sample lesson plan designed to reinforce academic content covered in previous assessments. The sample plan describes how the story and activities were chosen and offers the...

Textbooks are heavier than a sheet of paper, so how can paper hold up a textbook? Young engineers create a structure out of paper that can support a textbook. To add another wrinkle, they must stay within budget and time constraints.

Do the places you have lived influence what you write? Class members research the lives of writers and look for how places these writers have lived might have influenced their writings. 

After listening to From Seed to Plant by Gail Gibbons, learners take a walk around their school looking for plants. They use digital cameras to photograph the plants, then construct a class book which has the identities of the plants,...

Here is a fun way to encourage a cooperative classroom, drawing skills, and creative expression. Each child draws a design or shape on his paper, then he rotates to the next child's paper where he adds to the previous design. When the...

Conduct a written literary discussion and diminish stress about public writing. Class members, already arranged into literature circles, compose and post responses to novels, signing with initials or class number. The process continues...

Eighth graders consider cross-curricular connections between social studies, singing, and current events. They listen to the song, "I Can't Cry Hard Enough." view scenes from September 11, then create presentations using images, a...