Case studies, an examination of images, and readings of passages from the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child are used to spark conversations in ESL/ELD social studies classes about this highly-charged topic. Using a variety of...

How can social media help or hinder civil dialogue? How can information shared on social media be verified? As the investigation of media reports of the events surrounding the shooting of Michael Brown continues, class members read...

Some problems are so big it takes an entire community to solve them. So was the case in the children's book Humphrey the Lost Whale: A True Story by Wendy Tokuda and Richard Hall. This primary grade activity uses a class read-aloud...

Every culture has a set of social skills one must learn to establish and maintain relationships. Some of these skills are particular to a culture and some are universal. Class members practice using appropriate language,...

What does social security reveal about the political and social culture of the 1930s? After beginning with a brief introductory video on the impact of the Great Depression and how various Americans, such as Huey Long and Francis...

To conclude their case study of media coverage of the shooting of Michael Brown by a Ferguson, Missouri, police officer, class members consider the role of citizen watchdogs in a democratic society, develop strategies for combating...

Class members investigate The Indian Removal Act of 1830, U.S. Theft of Mexican Territory Timeline, and President Abraham Lincoln’s letter to Horace Greeley, 1862, and then conduct a mock trial of each of these documents to determine...

How would the story of the discovery of America be different if indigenous people told it through their eyes? Individuals compare the conventional account of this moment in history to an account given by one of the native peoples. After...

Sexual harassment and sexual violence are by no means new issues. What has changed is the role of social media in these issues. This powerful and troubling lesson plan uses a specific rape case to launch research into a discussion of the...

A powerful photograph of the Freedom Riders of 1961 launches an examination of the de jure and de facto injustices that the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s addressed. Young historians first watch a video and read the Supreme...

Artists, musicians, and dramatists have long been the leaders in the quest for social justice. To gain an understanding of the power of the arts to address social issues, class members listen to a reading of Drew Daywalt's The Day the...

A lunch-time activity encourages pupils to step out of their usual lunch bunch and connect with someone new. To begin, individuals examine a group photograph and identify what they believe is the gender, race, religion, and sexual...

Good study habits are key to success in school. The activities in this packet are designed to get kids thinking about improvements they could make in their study habits.

Even without captions, photographs can tell amazing, involved, and complex stories. Viewers analyze two photos, consider what the pictures reveal about the subjects' identity, and determine the social justice issues represented in the...

A social justice lesson focuses on the Supreme Court case Loving v. Virginia which struck down laws that prohibited marriages between African Americans and white Americans. The lesson begins with class members examining a photograph of...

Is losing cultural traditions the cost of social progress, or should people make stronger efforts to preserve these traditions? High schoolers watch a short film about the native Yup'ik people in Alaska and how they handle the shifts in...

Action is the heart of change. Encourage class members to not only identify critical social justice issues in their school or community but to take action as well. As individuals or as groups, they research a situation, develop a...

Just because slavery was illegal doesn't mean it went away ... Jim Crow Laws took its place. An eye-opening lesson focuses on how Jim Crow Laws were used as a form of racial social control against African Americans in the United States....

Introduce young historians to the US Constitution with this upper-elementary social studies lesson plan. Beginning with a general discussion about the role of government in society, students go on to work in small...

Different varieties of Christmas trees provide an interesting way to combine social studies, science, math, and technology. Class members not only research the history of the Christmas tree holiday tradition, they compare and...

Young citizens consider the American civil rights movement as part of the global struggle for human rights. After using a timeline activity to learn about the major events in the civil rights movement, class members study...

Did the New Deal fundamentally shift the role of the American government in the economy? Your class members will examine the interpretations of various historians in answering this question, and use a variety of primary and secondary...

Take the opportunity to offer your young adults some important financial wisdom on the way taxes and inflation will affect their lives in the future. Through discussion and review of different real-world scenarios provided...

As part of a case study of U.S. immigration during the first part of the 20th century, class members examine a variety of primary sources that present multiple perspectives of the responses of those in favor of immigration and those...