SMART Project
Shop with Us at Whelan School
Third graders use their math and research skills to create and manage a classroom/school store. They use a computer to manage, organize and access information. They practice pricing products, computing sales, counting money and...
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World War I
Learners justify how alliances lead to war. They compare the conflicts of war that arose because of imperialist interest. Students explain the cause of World War I. They compare and contrast European maps before and after World War I....
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Investigative Case - Protistan Tales of Atlantic White Cedar Swamps
Students use this WebQuest to explore the vast diversity of microbes, especially those microbes of the Atlantic Cedar Swamps. They tell a story about the protests of the Atlantic Cedar Swamp in the form of anthropomorphism.
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It's in the Cards
Students discover how art auctions have become competitive after reading an article from The New York Times. Students voice their opinions about specific examples of modern art and create trading cards based on their research of...
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A Meal of Endurance
Students evaluate the nutritional value of the explorers' meals. This is done through analyzing caloric intake versus caloric expenditure, describing the trend in diet change that explorers experienced over a two year expedition, ...
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High Mountain Retreat
Students explore and analyze atmospheric conditions for a high mountain retreat. They examine the relationship between altitude, atmospheric pressure, temperature and humidity at a particular location. In addition, they write reports...
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Front Page News
Students collect and analyze the front pages of various newspapers and perform research on the Titantic tragedy. They choose a name for their newspaper, a headline, gather photographs, and write a front page article. Using computer...
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The Candy Conundrum
Students design a candy container that contains a specific amount of candy. They demonstrate how an engineering problem can be solved with math and that there are multiple answers to the problem. They compute volume of spheres.
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Historical Heroes
High schoolers determine whether the ends truly justify the means by examining the behavior of historical and fictional heroes. They view and discuss film versions of Gangs of New York and Les Miserables. Then they break into small...
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MONSTERS AND MYTHS: SCRIPTS /SCULPTS
Seventh graders are introduced to myths formed by many cultures as a unique genre of literature. They use critical thinking skills to compare and contrast mythic tales, compare versions of the same story, and respond to literature in...
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Unseen Perspectives
Learners view themselves and their surroundings from different perspectives and gain insight into how others might see them, and discuss how and why they act differently when around various people. After brainstorming multiple meanings...
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Rain Forest Adventures
Students identify and describe where tropical rain forests are located and examine the geographical correlation between rainfall and rain forest. They brainstorm what they think they know about tropical rain forests - where they're...
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Endangered Species Problem
Students list the morphological characters used to identify the cacti in the field, and describe the associated problems in using these characters for identification. They draw the geographical ranges of the varieties of species...
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Outside interview
Students refine their fieldwork skill by conducting interviews. From the position of an outsider, they conduct research and interviews. Student interviews are maintained as a part of a portfolio. Interview kits and assessment...
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Folk Groups
Students study the characteristics of a folk group, themselves and their folk groups, and write about a folk group that is meaningful to them. They identify various folk groups within the school community and discover that everyone,...
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Teams in the Field
Students conduct team interviews outside the classroom, either within the school or beyond, as part of a fieldwork project. They use reasoning skills as they formulate questions, plan, predict, hypothesize, and speculate about the...
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Grown-ups at Play
Learners realize that adults entertain themselves at work and in their private lives and that much of adult play, like children's play, is part of adults' folklife and that they play in various folk groups. They consider the elite,...
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Birth and Early Childhood
Eighth graders read and compare creation stories of different cultures around the world. They identify and define the concept of the cycle of life and collect and analyze birth and childhood folk beliefs and stories in their families...
National First Ladies' Library
Flopsy, Mopsy, Eleanor, and Beatrix
Young scholars read "The Tale of Peter Rabbit" and view the photos of the pets that inspired Beatrix Potter to write. They then select a different book to read from the University of Pennsylvania's website or from the public library that...
National First Ladies' Library
The First Great Awakening
Connecting social studies and American literature, learners study the Great Awakening and draw comparisons between its impact on England and on parts of Colonial America. They research the lives and experiences of people who lived during...
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The Oregon Trail
Students use maps and diagrams to examine the Oregon Trail. In groups, they create their own poster of the trail showing the different types of artifacts found along the way. To end the lesson, they identify the sources of water and...
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All Across America
Students share experiences of places they have visited or would like to visit. They create travel guides for trips to take in the United States based on themes from their studies, incorporating both historical and current data about...
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How I Became Me
Students examine their own identities and read about the experiences of adopted Chinese daughters celebrating the Jewish rite of passage, the bat mitzvah. They write personal poems or speeches illustrating how their identities evolved.
Learning Station
Researching and Writing a Biography
In this literature and writing graphic organizer worksheet, students choose a famous person to research. They fill in important facts that are described in the graphic organizer which start with the birth and childhood to the adulthood...