Curated OER
Folklore in Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God
Students read Zora Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God and explore her life history as well as novel analysis activities. In this novel analysis lesson, students identify elements in the novel and its overall literary impact. Students...
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Who Owns The Past?
Students research the validity and legality of ownership. Through the use of primary sources, web based and print media research, students become familiar with and evaluate the varying viewpoints regarding the...
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African Art: Ntan Drum
Students study African history, anthropology and culture using the lens of the art object, Ntan Drum. Lesson and instruction is differentiated for elementary, middle and high school students.
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Urban Ecosystems 5: In Defense Of Cities
Middle schoolers explain that while cities have unattractive features, the density of human life enables energy efficiency, mass transit, recycling, and other benefits which are difficult or impossible in rural areas. This is the fifth...
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Understanding Artifacts
Students will develop a greater awareness of the things surrounding them and will be able to build a bridge between their own material culture and that of an imaginary figure from the past. This activity focuses on the significance of...
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Baga Drum
Students examine a Baga Drum in order to explore the history of the Baga people of West Africa. In this art history lesson, students recognize figures used in Baga Drum design that represent aspects of Baga culture. They also design and...
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Urban Ecosystems 4: Metabolism of Urban Ecosystems
Middle schoolers discover that material and energy uses by a city come from outside the city boundaries. They realize that the pathway of these material is linear instead of cyclical as they are in natural ecosystems.
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Urban Ecosystems 2: Why Are There Cities? A Historical Perspective
Students investigate the importance of food surpluses to the historical development of urban ecosystems.
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Spaceship Earth
Middle schoolers develop an understanding of our planet as a system by designing a very-long-duration space mission in which the life-support system is patterned after that of earth.
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PASSENGER PIGEONS: NOMADS LOST
Students explore the concept and implications of extinction using the example of the Passenger Pigeon, once an extremely abundant species that was completely eliminated by humans.
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What Are the Social Studies?
Identify core social studies subjects with adult learners. They will discuss key issues from twentieth century American history and identify key social studies concepts taught at elementary grade levels. They then modify this activity to...
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Ecosystem Services - Water Purification
Students see that ecosystems provide services to people that are essential to life as we know it. Reporters (drops of water) could interview the trees and soil in the surrounding ecosystems for news stories on how they helped keep the...
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Water Purification
Students use the example of natural water purification to show that healthy ecosystems provide services to people that are essential to life as we know it.
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Hominid Traits: Ape to Man
Twelfth graders collaborate and analyze information about our hominid lineage. They discuss evidence researched by anthropologists. Students use spreadsheet data to compare means of locomotion, diet and brain size.
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Shadows of North Carolina's Past
Students construct a timeline of four major culture periods in Native American history from studying archaeological evidence cards.
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Urban Ecosystems 3: Cities as Population Centers
Students discover that throughout history cities have been centers of population but that human exploitation of fossil fuels was key to the growth of large cities worldwide. They research urban growth through a number of websites.
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Pharaoh Phonetics
Learners explain the purpose of hieroglyphics and identify their role in communicating ideas. They research the history of writing and it's significance in ancient Egyptian life and identify the components of hieroglyphics.
National Endowment for the Humanities
Folklore in Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God
Learners define folklore, folk groups, tradition, and oral narrative. They identify traditional elements in Their Eyes Were Watching God Analyze and understand the role of traditional folkways and folk speech in the overall literary...
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Creating a Pot: Repetition as a Unifying Design Element
Students use subjects, themes, and symbols that demonstrate knowledge of contexts, values, and aesthetics that communicate intended meaning in artworks.
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Culture Everywhere
Students study their culture while filling in a chart that shows how culture meets basic human needs. They examine the role of archaeologists in studying people from past cultures.
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Methods of Collecting Information
Third graders examine a bag or box of soil containing items that they dig for. Their task is to become detectives to make conclusions about the area from which the items came as real archaeologists do.
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The Meaning of Disability
Students discover the different types of disabilities. They examine the stereotypes and stigmas associated with them and hear from a person who lived in an institution.
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If the World Was a Village...Examining Ethnocentrism
Seventh graders examine their own perceptions of world's people, compare those perceptions to real demographic data, provide definition and understanding of term "ethnocentrism," and examine their own ethnocentrism based on comparison of...
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New World Meets Old
Students demonstrate understanding of basic facts about Christopher Columbus and different theories regarding his background. They try to solve the mystery of Christopher Columbus' background and write an essay offering their own opinion.