Media Smarts
Thinking About Television and Movies
As part of their study of the influence of TV and films, class members consider how music, lighting, costumes, camera angles, etc. are used to influence the response of viewers.
Chicago Botanic Garden
Faces of Climate Change
Sometimes, the best solution to a problem can be found by walking in someone else's shoes. Here, scholars use character cards to take on the roles of people around the world. They determine how their character's...
PBS
Stories of Painkiller Addiction: The Brain on Autopilot
For some people, the force of addiction can be as biologically compelling as the drive for food or water. High schoolers watch a video segment about Ryan, a recovering addict, and learn more about how opioids and other drugs can affect...
Scholastic
Stressed Out?
Provide tweens and teens with information they need to know about stress with an article that details how stress affects various organs in the body. The article also offers tips for healthy ways to cope with stress.
West Contra Costa Unified School District
Quadratic Equations — What We Know
Everything you could possibly want to know about quadratic equations, all in one resource. Instructors demonstrate how to translate between different forms of quadratics (equation, table of values, graph, verbal description) and finding...
Curated OER
How Far Can You Jump?
Students estimate the distance of student's broad jumps. This activity can take place in the block center with a small group of students. They are explained that they are going to jump from a starting point (marked with the masking...
NY Learns
Investigation - Looking at Polygons
Middle schoolers construct polygons by plotting points on a coordinate plane. Pupils connect the points and identify which polygons they have drawn. They will need graph paper to carry out the assigned activities. A vocabulary list,...
Curated OER
The Wednesday Wars: Question Answer Response Strategy
Readers of The Wednesday Wars respond to model "Right There," "Think and Search," "On My Own," and "Author and You" (QAR) questions before crafting their own for class discussion.
Cornell University
Diffraction Demystified
Study diffraction patterns using CDs and DVDs! Scholars measure the diffraction patterns of a light wave as it hits a CD or DVD. Using the information, they can measure the distance between the tracks.
PBS
WWII: Detained
Imagine being forced against your will behind barbed wire for doing nothing but being yourself. Scholars investigate the impact Japanese-American internment camps had during World War II. Through video and archival evidence, they create...
National Gallery of Canada
A Cultural Portrait
Explore heritage and identity through an examination of art and a related project. The featured art, related to the African diaspora, includes several types of art created by different artists. Pupils consider their own backgrounds and...
EngageNY
Solve for Unknown Angles—Angles and Lines at a Point
How do you solve for an unknown angle? In this sixth installment of a 36-part series, young mathematicians use concepts learned in middle school geometry to set up and solve linear equations to find angle measures.
Constitutional Rights Foundation
Refugees: International Law and U.S. Policy
Discover the ways America has opened its borders to international refugees, and the ways other countries have been more or less welcoming, with an informational passage about United States and international policies on refugees....
Statistics Education Web
Which Hand Rules?
Reaction rates vary between your dominant and nondominant hand ... or do they? Young scholars conduct an experiment collecting data to answer just that. After collecting data, they calculate the p-value to determine if the difference is...
Curated OER
Coaching, Conferencing, and Correcting
Students, after revising their writing and identifying their strengths and weaknesses, edit their writing incorporating teacher feedback and examples from class exercises. In addition, they continue working on individual writing...
Curated OER
Shhh! Quiet!
Students become aware that when certain letters are put together in a word they are said with a single mouth move. Through modeling and a variety of guided practice activities they explore the /sh/ phoneme. They read and identify 'sh'...
Scholastic
Thanksgiving Lessons Grades PreK-2
A quintessential resource for teaching an elementary unit on the first Thanksgiving addresses a variety of skills, including informational reading, critical thinking, comparing and contrasting facts, technology tools, and historical...
Curated OER
Reading Fiction: Analyzing Sentences
Students investigate sentence construction in fiction. In this sentence construction lesson, students examine examples of fiction work and discover why sentences are a certain length. Students create their own passages...
National Endowment for the Humanities
Lesson 3: Religion and the Fight for American Independence
Pupils explore the role religion played in the American Revolutionary War. Using primary documents and writing exercises, high schoolers understand how religion was used in support of the war efforts and how specific religious groups...
National Endowment for the Humanities
Thirteen Ways of Reading a Modernist Poem
High schoolers analyze modernist poetry and the role of speaker in example poems. Learners study modernist poems from the Romanticism and Victorian periods as well as Wallace Stevens' "Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird." Using a...
Curated OER
My Favorite Animal
Students research an animal of choice and create a project. In this animal science lesson, students choose an animal living in the International Peace Park to research. Students write a paper and create a project to present...
Virginia Department of Education
Adding Specific Vocabulary
An exercise and activity tackle the struggles young writers have in expressing and adding details and specific vocabulary to their writing. The instructor guides the class with an example paragraph, where the learners discuss what...
Curated OER
Emotional Needs
Learners analyze the physical characteristics of old age. They identify and differentiate diseases of old age. They analyze the stereotypes of older adults and write summaries of responses by other groups.
Curated OER
Bytes: A Summer Byte
Students create a collage from their own digital pictures using Adobe Photoshop Elements. Following a step-by-step instruction guide, students create a collage from pictures of their summer vacation as part of a writing assignment.