Positive and negative numbers are everywhere in the world around us. Whether it's charged particles in atoms, a hot air balloon rising and falling in the sky, or a series of bills and checks being delivered in the mail, this...

Class members explore possible career paths and consider their own passions and interests by researching job openings, career descriptions, and skills, as well as reading the success stories of experienced entrepreneurs.

What better way to prepare your class for Common Core testing than with a practice test? The practice test includes several reading passages, both literary and informational, and learners respond to multiple choice questions...

Set up a solid foundation for learners going into Common Core testing by taking some time to complete this practice test. Class members answer questions about both literary and informational texts, with an emphasis on textual evidence....

From more empathetic individuals to greater tolerance in government, learners explore the benefits of a culturally diverse world through a series of collaborative, discussion-based activities. 

Do you know the setting of The Count of Monte Cristo? What about the main characters? Explore the elements of Alexandre Dumas' novel with a reading comprehension activity. Kids toss boxes with literary elements written on each side,...

Wind turbines, daylight savings time, noise pollution, social problems. To develop close reading skills, high schoolers examine pairs of articles presenting opposing viewpoints of the same topics and respond to questions that...

Emerging nutritionists explore what it means to be healthy. In the beginning of the unit, your class will examine the five food groups and learn how food gets from the farm to our plates. This leads into the investigation of...

Jam packed with problems, this advanced Algebra worksheet focuses on topics such as domain, solving quadratics, solving rationals, and function notation.  

Even the most thrilling sports career can end in an asterisk if the player uses performance-enhancing drugs. Focused on the topic of doping in sports, a seventh grade unit breaks down the arguments for and against steroids in five...

Hop into a covered wagon and follow Laura Ingalls Wilder through the Midwest. A series of lessons based on Little House on the Prairie encourages young pioneers to see the world through Laura's eyes as they map her...

The final performance task for the unit requires class members to utilize what they have learned to create a personal digital scene. Groups work together to develop a scene and then, using top-down design, break the scene into...

Try to figure out what happens with shadows as a person moves between two light sources. A formative assessment lesson has individuals work on an assessment task based on similar triangles, then groups them based on their...

Five sessions make up a lesson plan on the Jewish celebration of Hanukkah. After reading and teaching young historians the history of the Jewish holiday, learners explore the celebration through hands-on activities and collaborative...

Arctic sea ice reflects 80 percent of sunlight, striking it back into space; with sea ice melting, the world's oceans become warmer, which furthers global warming. These activities explore how humans are impacting ecosystems around the...

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...

The last installment of a 21-part unit is a practice performance task that asks class members to design an app using skills from the unit. Scholars take one of the previous apps from the unit and modify it by adding elements and making...

Does the number of calories you eat affect the total time you sleep? Young mathematicians tackle this question by collecting their own data and making comparisons between others in the class through building scatter plots and regression...

How do you create a classroom environment where hot button topics may be discussed in a respectful manner? As part of a series of lessons that focus on immigration issues, class members examine the rules for civil discussion before...

Class members select a picture that contains a parabola and construct a drawing of it using function graphs in the quadratic project. Individuals restrict the domains of the functions to create a more accurate drawing. They then submit a...

Follow in Jules Verne's footsteps and take a journey to the center of the earth! Middle schoolers work together to design a trip inside the earth using their knowledge from the previous lessons in the unit.

After viewing the documentary The Last Roundup, a documentary about the transitioning of Santa Rosa from a privately own island to a National Park, class members debate the takings clause of the Fifth Amendment that permits the...

Learning to craft quality questions is a skill that can be taught. Class members use the Question Formulation Technique to learn how to create and refine both closed-ended and open-ended questions. They then view West of the West's...

What are the factors that limit growth and expansion? As part of their study of Catalina Island, class members view the West of the West's documentary Magic Isle and research William Wrigley and the Santa Catalina Island Company. After...