Learners research historical events of the past century to recognize that society impacts the themes within art and literature. They then interview an individual to develop a biographical narrative, a collage and finally an oral...

What's the best way to learn how watersheds work? Build one! Combining engineering, the water cycle, and ecology concerns, the activity is the perfect fit for an interdisciplinary unit. Teams construct a model watershed with simple...

Design and construct buildings with rooftop gardens. Junior engineers work in groups to build two buildings and then perform experiments to determine whether or not a garden affects the building's temperatures. They graph and interpret...

Explore optics using an inquiry-based experimental approach! Young scholars use a set of materials to design and build a unit capable of focusing a beam of light. They experiment with different lenses to determine the best approach to...

Discover how to analyze architecture from a geometric standpoint. The fourth installment of an 11-part unit on architecture first provides a presentation on axis, balance, basic form, formal, pattern, proportion, symmetry, and tripartite...

Airline mechanics must be precise, or the consequences could be deadly. Their target ranges alter with changes in temperature and pressure. When preparing an airplane for flight, you must read a maintenance graph. The second lesson of...

Second in a series of five lessons, this lesson encourages preteens to consider cities as urban ecosystems. First, they keep a food diary for a few days. They visit the Natrional Agricultural Statistics Service website for current data...

Just about every public building that your students are familiar with has an access ramp which complies with ADA requirements. As it turns out, designing such a ramp is an excellent activity to incorporate slope, the Pythagorean Theorem,...

"Fore!" All right, no one really yells this out in miniature golf, but this well-defined activity will have your charges using lots of numbers in their unique design of a miniature golf hole. Included in the activity criteria is the...

Young scholars complete a unit focusing on the creation of a student-generated website. They read and evaluate articles about business ethics, critique websites, and develop a student-created webpage.

Tenth graders differentiate pandemic and epidemic. In this health science lesson, 10th graders analyze how HIV and AIDS affect different countries. They construct and interpret different types of graphs.

Biology stars extract DNA samples from beef thymus and then examine its properties. They use enzymes to digest the DNA samples, and then use electrophoresis to separate fragments. Finally, they discuss methods and principles of...

Students create a movie to illustrate an original haiku poem in this upper-elementary school, Language Arts lesson utilizing technology. The lesson meets state standards for Language Arts and includes a materials list and possible lesson...

Middle schoolers explore characteristics of the myth genre.  In this myth lesson plan, students become familiar with various myths and the cultures they were derived from. Middle schoolers compare in a graphic...

Explore online profiles and social media with your middle and high school classes. Use blogs to inspire your class to craft a well-written, thoughtful response to a prompt you give.  A few example prompts are given. 

Seventh graders explore the Solar System. They develop a research question and use inquiry-based research skills to find the answers to their questions. Students write up their findings and create a multimedia presentation.

Show your class how engineers use graphs to understand large and complex systems. The resource provides the beginnings of graph theory by introducing the class to set theory, graphs, and degree distributions of a graph. 

Eighth graders investigate art appreciation and Renaissance portraits through time. They create a portrait.

Students investigate how to design and build items with a focus on structural strength as an engineer would. They complete a truss-building project as a final assessment.

Students identify foods that belong in each group on the food guide pyramid. They discuss how TV and peers may negatively influence eating habits.

Fifth graders investigate the basic persuasive techniques employed in advertising. They identify three examples of propaganda/persuasive techniques, complete an observation chart, take an advertising quiz, complete a spreadsheet that...

Students are introduced to how to use the internet and send emails. In groups, they work together to send emails to other students around the world. To end the lesson, they read their emails to the class and respond to their questions.

Ninth graders explore the evolution of technology. They discuss how technology has affected their daily lives and how it has changed throughout the course of history. They discuss what invention has most affected the world.

Students identify and research famous European explorers using a variety of sources. They compare and contrast the explorers drawing conlusions about the importance of each explorer. They design a web page on one explorer of their choice.