George Bailey learns that it truly is a wonderful life when he discovered how many lives he has touched—not to mention how many new generations of lives the story touches every year. A study guide on It's a Wonderful Life ...

What are some of life's most tried-and-true lessons? Pupils listen to examples from the book Live and Learn and Pass It On by H. Jackson Brown, Jr. They write down their own life lessons to later compile in a class booklet. As...

Got milk? Only two cultures have had it long enough to develop the tolerance of lactose as an adult. Learn how the responsible genes evolved along with the cultures that have been consuming milk. This rich film is supplied with a few...

Young geometers and biologists investigate the math of nature in an activity that is just the bee's knees. Participants will study the tessellations of hexagons in a beehive, along with the natural rationale behind the specific shape....

Scary stuff! Whether approached as the first horror story or a "serious imaginative exploration of the human condition," Frankenstein continues to engage readers. Here's a packet of activities that uses Mary Shelley's gothic...

The scientific issue of carbon-14 dating and exponential decay gets a statistics-based treatment in this problem. The class starts with a basic investigation of carbon content, but then branches out to questions of accuracy and...

Many organizations put on barbecues in order to make money. In a real-world math problem, the money allotted to purchase steak and chicken at this barbecue is only one hundred dollars. It is up to your potential chefs to figure out how...

Here is a resource that demonstrates growth and the initial state of an equation. In this case, your class will be looking at baseball collections. How many baseball cards did the collector start out with, and how many were added or...

This model of the amount of anibiotics in a person's system is represented abstractly by a finite geometric series. Learners translate this real-life situation into algebraic form and then extend their knowlege by answering questions...

Sometimes people who seem to lead what would be considered an ordinary life do extraordinary things. Such was the case with Oseola McCarty, who donated a large sum of money for a university scholarship fund in her name. Oseala lived her...

Division can be seen in two ways; as splitting a whole into a certain number of pieces, or splitting it into pieces of a certain size. Help your class reach this understanding with these two simple word problems. Encourage the use of...

Your young physicists analyze the forms of four equivalent exponential expressions representing an amount of a radioactive material in a substance. They show how each expression is equivalent to the others and what aspects of the decay...

Your Algebra learners analyze and solve an exponential equation in this popular, real-life model of the cooling of a liquid.  

Young geometers become pool sharks in this analysis of the angles and lengths of a trick shot. By using angles of incidence and reflection to develop similar triangles, learners plan the exact placement of balls to make the shot....

A simple question, with a not-so-simple answer. Working with whole and mixed number measurements in inches, feet, and yards presents a problem with many possible solutions. A great activity that challenges the minds of young...

Explore ocean habitats with a lesson that showcases the home of manatees and loggerhead turtles in Belize. Here, pupils compare and contrast the homes of ocean animals to those of humans, listen to an original short story about...

Riddle me this! What do kennings, caesura, and alliteration have to do with the Nowell Codex? Introduce class members to Anglo-Saxon poetry and prepare readers for a study of Beowulf with a series of activities that...

A second attack at figuring out the number of leaves on a tree, this activity makes both an excellent follow-up to version 1 and a stand-alone activity. Learners practice setting parameters and deciding acceptable estimate precision, and...

On your mark, get set, GO! The class sprints toward the conclusions in a race analysis activity. The staggered start of the 400-m foot race is taken apart in detail, and then learners step back and develop some overall race strategy...

Your class will be very interested in the results of this activity. How long does it take a MP3 and video game player to charge?  Sam only has an hour and the MP3 player only has 40% of its battery life left. Plus, his video player...

From dragons to dwarves, from riddles to rings, the great adventure story of The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien has captivated generations of readers of all ages. An educator's guide explores the novel's literary elements,...

As an introduction to the hypothesis and testing method of investigation, young history detectives engage in a special investigation of a family artifact. After watching a short video that demonstrates the method, they develop a...

One of the most common, everyday applications of math is dealing with money. This single problem calculating how much change Margie receives is more involved than it appears at first glance. An understanding of how fractions and decimals...

Your young weather buffs use compositions and inverses of functions to convert between Celsius, Fahrenheit, and Kelvin degrees. Then they analyze possible compositions and whether they exist in the real-life context.