Two informational texts feature community gardens of the past and present and how seeds grow. Scholars read, discuss what they have read, complete a timeline, define words, and compose a brief essay about the texts' main idea.

Here is a great resource for vetting your next project-based learning idea and considering all the major components that you should incorporate. 

Logical thinking is at the forefront of this jam-packed lesson, with young mathematicians not only investigating geometric concepts but also how they "know what they know". Through each activity and worksheet, learners wrestle with...

Use Nathanial Hawthorne's immortal text on the influence of religion on the early American settlements, as well as its continued impact on American culture, with a unit that focuses on The Scarlet Letter. In addition to Hawthorne's...

Game, set, match! Teach young athletes the basics of tennis with a set of tennis lesson plans. Each plan focuses on a different stroke and guides instructors through the best way to teach, refine, and extend tennis lesson.

When making sweet tea, why do people dissolve the sugar in hot tea instead of cold tea? The class discusses the previous lab and builds upon it. Working in groups, they design an experiment to determine how temperature affects the...

Some chemical reactions produce heat, but what is really going on? Lesson focuses on the concept of energy changes, both exothermic and endothermic. Scholars perform multiple experiments, hands-on activities, and view videos of the...

You won't have to force your classes to complete these engaging activities! Through exploration, young scientists learn that force has both magnitude and direction. They draw force diagrams, investigate force models, and complete a...

It's alive! Young mad scientists create monsters as they explore the probabilities of genetic traits during a well-structured inquiry activity. Pairs travel from station to station, rolling the dice and adding traits to their creations...

What part did Kentucky play in the Civil War? A constructed response essay assignment tests to ensure scholars understand the concepts and the arguments for the causes of the Civil War. Learners must read a primary source quote and then...

A 13-page workbook walks scholars through the California CareerZone website. Class members start by creating accounts then take an interest survey. Results from the survey are used in activities that explore lifestyle choices, budgeting,...

"What are Henry's options?" "What do you think Henry will do?" To better understand the central conflict for the main character in Robert Cormier's Tunes for Bears to Dance to, class members engage in a compare-and-contrast activity that...

Now that your science class has experimented with pH indicator and identified acids and bases, they attempt to get the cabbage juice indicator back to its original color. This is done through neutralization of the acids and bases that...

Goldilocks and the Three Numbers? The pre-activity task involves finding digits to complete decimals or fractions that satisfy given constraints, such as finding a fractions that is in between two others. The main task involves a similar...

Sometimes a test page loaded with text can make a student's face go blank. Help them decipher what a text question is asking with a series of tips focused on reading comprehension, vocabulary, and language arts mechanics.

Patch up any misconceptions about writing functions. Scholars undertake a performance task that has them first examine a pattern in patchwork cushions. They represent the patterns in triangular and rectangular blocks using a table and as...

Learn about butterflies and place value in a series of interdisciplinary lessons! With several worksheets that reference butterfly facts in word problems, kids can practice science and math in one activity. Additional worksheets are...

Are you looking to put the fun back in the fundamentals of chemistry? Why not have groups create their own periodic tables of something (animals, food, music groups, etc.) practicing the organizational strategies used in the periodic...

You aced the first test, so your score on the second one shouldn't matter, right? Young pupils first draw a best fit line on a provided scatter plot showing test scores for two different tests. They then evaluate five...

Round and round and round we go. Given a diagram of three circles, two of which share a point with the third circle, learners identify the radius of each circle. Doing so requires setting up and solving a system of equations based on the...

Change the way you teach about rewriting expressions. A diagnostic task asks learners to transform expressions in different ways. Given two linear expressions and two quadratic expressions, they rewrite them into the indicated forms.

How hard can it be to measure out two pounds? A short performance task introduces a situation where a balance scale is broken. It gives a method for measuring out two pounds and asks learners to evaluate the procedure. They must prove...

It's great to have a large swimming pool. An interesting performance task asks learners to optimize the volume of pools for a given surface area. They consider four different shapes for pools and find the maximum volume for each pool.

Take the road to a greater knowledge of functions. Young mathematicians graph an absolute value function representing a road connecting several towns. Given a description, they identify the locations of the towns on the graph.