How did scientists discover what lies beneath the earth's surface? Dig a hole? X-ray vision? Guide your class through the types of seismic waves and how these waves helped shed light on Earth's many layers. The included resources provide...

Take a "conservative" approach to planning your next unit on mass and matter! What better way to answer "But where did the gas go?" than with a lab designed to promote good report writing, research skills, and detailed observation....

Lovers, madmen, and readers of A Midsummer Night's Dream will need seething brains to complete a crossword puzzle designed for Shakespeare's engaging comedy.

Terror, mystery, excitement. American writers of the 19th century, including Nathaniel Hawthorne, Herman Melville, and Emily Dickinson, used these elements to create morally ambiguous tales that challenged the prevailing belief in...

Imagine if Sigmund Freud or Charles Darwin had a Facebook page. As part of a study of major historical figures in the field of psychology, class members are assigned a psychologist and design a mock Facebook page that includes...

Did you know that Vivaldi wrote "Winter," the final concerto of his The Four Seasons, in the key of F minor to echo the sleigh ride pieces popular at the time? A teacher resource kit, designed to support a study of the work, is packed...

If a Zapotec urn, buried for over a thousand years in a temple in the lost city of Xoxocotlan in the Valley of Oaxaca in the mountains of southern Mexico could talk image the stories it could tell. That's the set up in a clever resource...

Students are introduced to Scientific Inquiry and discover how to design an experiment that answers critical questions using butterflies as the topic. They design experiments that compare the number of species of butterflies in a vacant,...

Ninth graders create a scaled model city. They create a blueprint that provides for the economic and cultural needs of a community. They identify where essential elements of the city should be located and explain the rationale for the...

Young scholars design their own job communities. In this art and career exploration lesson, students are placed into groups to create models of business areas based on job types.

Middle schoolers observe and explain continuity with the past in contemporary furniture design.

Students examine the city of Duluth, Minnesota. In groups, they use the internet to discover its current state of urban geography. After their research, they create and plan their own redeveloping of the city. They share their results...

Students explore the use of Google Earth and Virtual Earth. In this Google Earth and Virtual Earth instructional activity, students use the applications to look at famous places on the earth. They solve clues (not given) to find the...

Students determine what designates a place as a region. They apply their criteria for a region to the US map. They work in groups to write a rap about their region that describes its organization, type and structure.

Students use the internet to research the geography of the Renaissance. Using maps of Europe, they identify at least three key cities during the time period and discuss the main types of transportation. They research the various customs...

Students compare/contrast bird's-eye views of Texas cities in the 1800s to those in the 2000s through the identification of landmarks. They write a summary of how one selected city has changed over time.

Students listen to the story "Clean Air, Dirty Air" by Lynne Patchett and discover the main types of pollution and how these affect their bodies. In this pollution lesson, students work in small groups to create a machine to prevent...

Third graders design a plate to represent the three parts of a tree. In this tree parts lesson plan, 3rd graders learn about the functions of each part and design the plate to resemble the rings of the tree.

Students research various planned communities and consider the pros and cons of such a development. They realize that planned communities have advocates and detractors and use these considerations when planning their own community.

In this worksheet, students will use an analogy to review the various parts of a cell.

Students use a map to locate New Orleans and watch a video on the destruction of Hurricane Katrina. As a class, they watch a demonstration on how a wetland can reduce the impact of a hurricane. In groups, they perform their own...

Students study the Anza-Borrego Desert. They complete the Patterns Project and survey the history of San Diego. They present their research to the class in the form of poster or report.

Learners describe their ideal city based on geography and climate and leisure activities in a collage and discussion. They apply their understanding of a city's layout based on geography and climate.

Sixth graders explore the solar system. Using the Internet, 6th graders gather information about planets in our solar system. Students participate in an activity to determine where they should build the first city in space. They create a...