Take a marble out for a roll. Using a section of flexible tubing, pupils build a roller coaster that will allow for a marble to act as the car. Learners create a loop, hill, and jump in their coasters by taping the tubing to different...

Is all research on animals bad? Learners use a video to understand how animal research benefits humans. Pupils read about a drug modification turned deadly and the result of the 1938 Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act. Scholars use a...

Cyberbullying is the focus of two lessons. First, scholars discuss what cyberbullying is, and examine a problem-solving approach to handling cyberbullying, then create brochures on the topic. Second, pupils discuss the effects...

Timing is everything. Introduce young historians to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s "Letter from Birmingham Jail" with a resource that underscores the significance of the timing of the Good Friday Birmingham march, King's subsequent...

A tasty treat lends its curious substance to space exploration. Mimicking the discoveries of Albert Einstein, young astronomers beginning by making a batch of Jello-O, then four hours later, scholars place edible objects that act like...

Moldy canned goods, exploding ketchup, and filthy conditions: These were some of the issues the reformers of the Progressive Era targeted with legislation such as the Pure Food and Drug Act. Using images of food factories and documents...

Wouldn't it be lovely if people were immune from colds and flu? Alas, such is not the case; however, there are things we can do to avoid getting or spreading these pesky health hazards. Middle schoolers read articles that provide them...

Imagine arguing a real Supreme Court case! Running your own county government! Acting as President for a day! iCivics offers games, web scavenger hunts, and other activities that encourage summer scholars to learn about their communities...

Acknowledge, Care, Tell! Freshmen learn how to ACT to help a friend demonstrating warning signs for depression and suicide in a carefully scaffolded, scripted instructional activity. Scholars also learn positive coping skills,...

Picture this: a fun activity for pupils to discover pixels. After learning about digital signals and pixels, scholars act as senders and receivers of an image. The sender indicates zero or one to tell whether each square in a grid is...

An informative activity focuses on the law preventing Native Americans from voting until 1947. Scholars read documents from the Office of Indian Affairs, complete an online worksheet, and participate in group discussion. Academics learn...

A presentation guides a discussion and opportunity for role-playing about identifying and talking about emotions. To begin, scholars share memories of happiness and unhappiness and how they responded to specific feelings. Then, learners...

A fiction and nonfiction text, The Great Kapok Tree: A Tale of the Amazon Rain Forest by Lynne Cherry and I See a Kookaburra! Discovering Animal Habitats Around the World by Steve Jenkins and Robin Page begins a learning experience in...

Two lessons take a close look at drug prevention. The first lesson, split into two sessions, challenges learners to gather information from an article, answer questions, then create a poster that encourages others to stay away from...

A series of hands-on activities follows a reading of The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle. Learners create a paper collage to explore the beginning, middle, and end of days of the week, numbers, and more. They grow a butterfly...

Let's take a trip to the future. Scholars imagine their future wealthy selves by completing a worksheet based on the year 2025. Then, acting as journalists, they conduct interviews with their classmates to prepare to write an article for...

Name that statistic! Classmates each write their name and the number of letters in it on a sticky note to place on the board. As a class, they determine the median, mode, and range of the name lengths, and create a dot plot of the data....

The Fair Play Act of 2009 came about due to the actions of one woman. Young historians research Lilly Ledbetter and what she went through to get pay equal to that paid to men for the same work at Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company. The...

Strong emotions may arise at anytime and any where. This activity boosts self-awareness and management for when young learners require assistance with their feelings. Tips include: remaining calm, breathing, explaining how they feel, and...

Young scholars identify feelings through facial expressions and body language. Learners listen for a feeling word, then act it out and discuss how they portrayed it.

Responsible speaker + critical listener = effective communication is the equation at the heart of a responsible listening lesson about the power of words. Class members view the clip of the courtroom scene from the film A Few...

What facts are essential, and what facts are irrelevant when making a decision? As class members continue with the Fallout Shelter exercise, groups develop questions and interview the 10 volunteers acting as candidates for the bomb...

"The Wife of Bath's Tale" and "The Pardoner, His Prologue, and His Tale" from Chaucer's Canterbury Tales take center stage in a lesson that asks scholars to update the tales, craft a script, and either video their version or act it out...

A timelapse video hooks learners' attention to the phases of the moon. After discussing their observations, pupils use the Moon Giant website to view the moon on their birthday and complete a bar graph. The class creates an anchor chart...