VIF Learning Center
Languages as Reflection of Cultures and Civilizations: French Speaking Countries
Expand your class's vision of the French-speaking world by conducting this research project. Pupils focus on building 21st-century skills while they look up information about a French country and put together presentations.
Curated OER
The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries
Students investigate the global importance of the African and Asian countries that export petroleum. They access the OPEC website and research this organization. They answer questions and write an essay about alternative energy sources.
Smithsonian Institution
Watching Crystals Grow
Amazing science can sometimes happen right before your eyes! The class gets cozy as they watch crystals grow. They use Epsom salts, rocks, and food coloring to create crystals. They'll observe the entire process, documenting every step...
Curated OER
Revolutionary Money
Examine paper money from the American revolution! Historians study the paper bills and discuss the history of money. How has money changed over the times? Activities are included.
Curated OER
Wildlife
The centerpiece of this lesson plan is a predator-prey simulation in which colored paperclips represent different species of animals camouflaged against a colored background. Relevant follow-up questions are provided. The activity is...
Curated OER
The Sahara: Home of the Tuareg
Students study inhabitants of the Sahara. In this Tuareg culture instructional activity, students explore the how the Tuareg people adapt to their environment as they research specific Internet sites.
Curated OER
Geographic Luck
Students examine why some countries are rich while others remain poor. They view a video on the website, Guns, Germs and Steel, analyze primary sources to conduct research about plants and animals, and create a game based on their research.
Curated OER
Plants and Animals: Partners in Pollination
Young scholars describe the complementary relationships between pollinators and the plants they pollinate, identify adaptations that flowers have developed to "encourage" pollination, and create and draw their own "designer" flowers.
Curated OER
Mineral Scavenger Hunt
Students complete a scavenger hunt worksheet as they find examples in their classroom, at home, etc., of minerals. Excellent worksheet!
Curated OER
Create a Classroom Exhibit: Rocks and Minerals
Students bring in rocks and minerals from home. They observe them and describe them carefully, completing a worksheet. Finally, a classroom exhibit is created.
Curated OER
Letters from the Japanese American Internment
Students examine letters of Japanese-American children during internment in World War II. They discover what it was like in the camps and how they were treated once they were released. They also view photographs of the camps.
Curated OER
The Colonization of Liberia
Students analyze how slavery shaped social and economic life in the South. They study methods of passive and active resistance to slavery, and the similarities and differences between African-American and white abolitionists.
Curated OER
Plants and Animals, Partners in Pollination
Young scholars participate in multiple hands-on activities to explore reproduction and pollination. In groups, using a cotton swab and powder, students simulate being pollinators and plants. They name the parts of the flowers and the...
Curated OER
Rocks and Minerals
Learners bring rocks and minerals from home to investigate in the classroom. In this rocks and minerals lesson plan, students observe all the rocks and minerals brought into the class and answer 7 questions about the features of the...
Curated OER
"ART ZOO 'Blacks in the Westward Movement', 'What Can You Do with a Portrait', and 'Of Beetles, Worms, and Leaves of Grass'"
Students study black history, examine portraits and portrait making and create their own portraits, and investigate their natural environment. This humanities activity provides a text that can be used to teach lessons in black history,...
Curated OER
The Westward Movement
Students study the westward movement through examining stamps. In this westward movement lesson plan, students draw conclusions, determine cause and effect relationships and examine the westward movement of the United States by...
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How Size Shapes Animals
Students investigate how size affects large and small animals differently. In this animal lesson plan, students determine how size affects different animals by constructing their own animal out of marshmallows. Once students create...
Curated OER
Fossils Footprints Across Time
Learners examine fossils to understand how they are formed and how they give information about geological history. In this fossil lesson plan, students research and write about fossils and make models of different fossil types.The PDF...
Curated OER
Going...going...gone? Tropical Rainforests-How They Work, What They Do for Us, What's Being Done to Them...
Sixth graders explore the Tropical Rainforest and come to understand what it is and how it affects the ecosystem. In this rainforests instructional activity, 6th graders write about the Tropical Rainforest, imagine they are in the...
Curated OER
Bringing the Rain to Kapiti Plain
Students analyze the story Bringing the Rain to Kapiti Plain geographically, and explain the term climate and discuss its relevance in the story as well as to their own lives.
Curated OER
The Growth of Islam
Seventh graders gain insight into the daily lives of Muslims and to develop empathy for them by studying the Islamic world and creating presentations.
Curated OER
Making Cultural Connections
Students explore cultures through storytelling. They read African folktales. Students discuss characteristics of folktales. They research and write a folktale that includes an animal. Additional cross curriculum activities are included.
Curated OER
Views of the American West: True or False?
Young scholars explain that a landscape painting may or may not accurately represent a specific place. They identify techniques that create the illusion of three-dimensional space on a flat surface.
Curated OER
India: Where Remarkable Differences Are Ordinary
Students research India and Indian culture. In this Indian research lesson plan, students research and report on the lives of Indian children. The report will be in the form of a mock interview between a journalist and an Indian child....