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STONEHENGE
Students work in cooperative groups to create a theory about the origin of Stonehenge. Each member of the group has a specific role, responsibilities and tasks. The group work can be implemented as a scaffolding technique.
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Tree-ring Dating
Middle schoolers complete activity sheets and participate in discussions while they study dendrochronology. They determine a tree's age and recognize how the climate varied over time.
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Pieces of an Artifact
Students review what an artifact is and discover what happens when only pieces of the artifact are found. In groups, they are given a picture of a small piece of an artifact found and they are to make the entire drawing of the artifact...
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Making Faces: Understanding Artifacts Through Design Elements
Students examine and discuss drinking container artifacts from Jamestown. They view images of the artifacts, discuss their purposes, draw an original facial expression for a brown paper jug, and write a description of the facial expression.
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Creatures from Planet X: Spiders
Students are given a description of some fascinating animals from "Planet X". They follow the descriptions given to illustrate one of these animals paying careful attention to introduced vocabulary such as 'appendages', 'receptors', and...
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Facts, Feats and Folklore: Spiders
Young scholars review and discuss a variety of sayings, folklore and superstitions about spiders. They discuss this information and choose either an interesting fact or appealing foklore tradition to illustrate.
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Lewis and Clark: The Language of Discovery
Students replicate some of the trailblazing methods of Lewis and Clark on a fifteen-minute "writing journey" through the school or neighborhood.
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Animal Encounters
Students use their visualizing and interpreting skills to produce original writings and artwork.
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How Things Fly
Students observe photographs of selected twentieth-century aircraft at the National Air and Space Museum and note differences in the design of aircraft wings, fuselages, and engines.
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How Things Fly
Students, by drawing on their own experiences, discuss and examine the basic physics of flight. They participate in a variety of activities regarding flight.
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Stories of the Wrights' Flight
Students examine and compare primary and secondary source accounts of the Wright brothers' first flights on December 17, 1903.
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Money Talks
Students move from fact finding to interpretation as they examine paper money from the time of the American Revolution. In the final exercise, they use the issue dates of the bills to construct a chronology of political changes during...
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Pictures Telling Stories
Students see the importance of primary sources in the study of history, but also the limitations of relying only on primary sources of taking the money, as it were, at face value.
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Spy on a Spider
Students view slides or live specimens to name and describe the distinguishing features of groups of arthropods, especially spiders and insects. They complete worksheets, observe webs and then search for and record where spiders can be...
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Letters from the Japanese American Internment
Young scholars make deductions about life in an internment camp by reading and comparing letters written to Clara Breed. Along the way, they consider the advantages of looking at a historical event from the multiple points of view of...
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What a Site!
Fourth graders are introduced to how to properly create a grid site. In groups, they use Cartesian coordinates to establish the boundaries for the grid and photograph the location of artifacts. They exchange their photos with another...
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An Archaeological Adventure
Students simulate an archeological dig in the classroom to explore a culture through its artifacts.
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Trash...it really piles up!
Students investigate a contemporary "midden" by analyzing trash collected from various sources and determining life-style choices people make. They see that reducing the amount of waste we generate is helpful to the the environment.
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Protecting the Past: Give a Hoot, Don't Loot
Students discuss the looting and vandalism of various archeological sites. In pairs, they read and complete a worksheet and review their answers as a class. In groups, they role play a artifact preservation skit and perform it to their...
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Pottery, Porcelain, And Posterity
Learners research and discuss the various ceramic techniques foudn throughout China's history using primary source documents and internet resources. This lesson emphasizes small learning groups.
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Teaching About Trade in the Ancient Mediterranean
Sixth graders examine the trade routes in the Mediterranean of the Ancient world. In groups, they view slides of artifacts while answering questions on a worksheet. After watching a video, they discuss how each object was found and...