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Animal Encounters
Students use their visualizing and interpreting skills to produce original writings and artwork.
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How Things Fly
Students observe photographs of selected twentieth-century aircraft at the National Air and Space Museum and note differences in the design of aircraft wings, fuselages, and engines.
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Center Stage -- Focus on the Elderly
Students role play and identify the perspectives of senior citizens. They develop a plan on how to interact with the elderly successfully. They examine children's books on how to relate to the elderly.
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Projecting the Image -- What Can One Person Do?
Middle schoolers research individuals who have received the Nobel Peace Prize. They identify the importance of their actions for the common good. They make note of their background, motivations and values.
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Cooperative Conjectures
Students compare and contrast how animals have coexisted with humans. They also identify industrial changes and how animals were affected. They use the internet to research information and present their findings to the class.
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Electronic Journals about Latin American Folktales
Young scholars exchange folktales with a key-pal using dialog journal writing. They write out a folktale from their own cultural background and exchange it with students of another. They record their impressions of each other's folktales.
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How Things Fly
Students, by drawing on their own experiences, discuss and examine the basic physics of flight. They participate in a variety of activities regarding flight.
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Stories of the Wrights' Flight
Students examine and compare primary and secondary source accounts of the Wright brothers' first flights on December 17, 1903.
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Story Writing
Learners master their compare and contrast writing skills by choosing an American cultural element (fashion, food, religion, etc.) and comparing it to the same element of another culture.
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Money Talks
Students move from fact finding to interpretation as they examine paper money from the time of the American Revolution. In the final exercise, they use the issue dates of the bills to construct a chronology of political changes during...
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Pictures Telling Stories
Students see the importance of primary sources in the study of history, but also the limitations of relying only on primary sources of taking the money, as it were, at face value.
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From Home to Nome
Third graders develop and create an electronic portfolio on their hometown, school, and themselves to send to a school on the Iditarod Trail. They gather information from the Internet, printed materials, and a digital camera.
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Amazing Aussie Animals
Fourth graders are introduced to Australian animals through a PowerPoint presentation. They choose an animal of interest and conduct in-depth research using several websites. They design a presentation with their findings.
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The Rocky Shore
Students compare a realistic landscape painting with a photograph of the same place.
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Black History in Music
Young scholars relate musical styles with US historical context through research and presentation.
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Folklore Festivities: Exploring Short Stories
Students explore the stories of "William Tell, The Husband Who Was to Mind the House, The Little Match Girl, and Three Words of Wisdomare" in the five lessons of this unit. The understanding of folktales is highlighted in this unit.
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Writing a Mystery Story
Students examine the elements of mystery stories and read Rage in Harlem. In reciprocal teaching groups, they discuss the author's development of the story, and complete dialectical journals.
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Lippmann vs. The Testers: Can Intelligence Be Measured?
Students examine the ideas of Walter Lippman and standardized testing. They discover the ideas and beliefs behind using standarized tests. They examine a copy of an IQ test and discuss.
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Fungal History
Students identify different types of fungi. They discuss how mushrooms are used in American culture and research an issue about a type of fungi. They share their information with the class.
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Build a Snowplow
Students design and build a snowplow using LEGO materials. They compete in an Engineer's Challenge to clear a path through Styrofoam peanuts.
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Spy on a Spider
Students view slides or live specimens to name and describe the distinguishing features of groups of arthropods, especially spiders and insects. They complete worksheets, observe webs and then search for and record where spiders can be...
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Creatures from Planet X: Spiders
Students are given a description of some fascinating animals from "Planet X". They follow the descriptions given to illustrate one of these animals paying careful attention to introduced vocabulary such as 'appendages', 'receptors', and...
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Facts, Feats and Folklore: Spiders
Students review and discuss a variety of sayings, folklore and superstitions about spiders. They discuss this information and choose either an interesting fact or appealing foklore tradition to illustrate.
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Salmon and Steelhead Life Stories Web Search
Students conduct an Internet investigation to discover the natural history of local salmon and/or steelhead. They then write a story that describes the life of a salmon or steelhead from the local creek, including a description of each...