Starry Night Education
Comets and Meteors
Comets are also known as dirty snowballs or icy mud balls. With your super scientists, create a model comet nucleus to discover how they are made and take part in a scientific discussion to learn how it behaves.
Balanced Assessment
Presidential Popularity
Media often misrepresent data and statistics to their advantage. This lesson asks scholars to analyze an article with misleading statistics. They use margin of error and mean data in their studies. Once they complete their analysis,...
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Types of Sentences
In this grammar learning exercise, students identify twenty sentences as correct as is, fragments, contains a comma splice or is a fused sentence.
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Joan of Arc: Virgin Warrior
Young scholars view a documentary on Joan of Arc. She is one of the most venerated saints in the Catholic religion, yet she was burned at the stake as a heretic. After viewing, students discuss what they saw and write a newspaper column...
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Medieval News
Fourth graders engage in a lesson constructed in order to dissect the parts of a story used by the news media in order to communicate to the public. They use the media in order to help obtain information. Students create their own...
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Writing a Class/School Newspaper
Students use their interviewing skills to gather information for a school newspaper. They summarize their interview and create an article for the school newspaper. Students develop the article, edit it using the spell check and revise...
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Building a Journalism Team
Students play a granola bar relay to learn about the importance of teamwork in a journalism team. In this journalism team lesson plan, students use granola bars to participate in a relay activity to improve their communication as well as...
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Life Cycle of Brassica Plants: Planting Seeds
Students explore botany by participating in a calendar class activity. In this plant observation lesson plan, students examine a diagram of a Brassica plant and identify its anatomy before planting their own seeds and viewing the changes...
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A Basic Photography Lesson
Students explain the aesthetics of photography, take photos that demonstrate their understanding of aesthetics, and take photos that convey a message or tell a story. They analyze the qualities of a given photo.
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A Pressing Project
Young scholars create a collection of pressed plants. In this plant lesson, students use newspaper, plywood, and a rubberband to press plants they previously collected.
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Passive Voice: English Project
Here’s a great idea: Have your class members create presentations about a grammar issue! “English Project” is a colorful, student-produced PowerPoint focused on passive voice. The presentation could be used as a lesson and as a model for...
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The Impact of an Image
Participate in National Photo Month by creating newspapers with an emphasis on photography.
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The News Article and The Editorial
Here is an outstanding series of lessons on journalism, writing newspaper articles, and writing editorials. This type of writing has long-been neglected in our schools, so this collection of writing activities is most-valuable. Along...
PBS
Inspector Detector
How do spacecraft detect magnetic fields? The fourth installment of a five-part unit has learners develop a device with magnets that allows for the detection of magnetic fields. They use a map of an imaginary planet to try out their...
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Is It Ethical to Eat Meat?
Have your class join a blog about whether or not eating meat is good for you. They'll read several passages regarding meat processing and consumption, then they post what they think. There are six critical-thinking prompts to help them...
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Charles Darwin
High schoolers research Charles Darwin and the process he used to develop his theory of evolution. They keep a journal about the skill of observation and make a newspaper of their learning.
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Punctuation (The Comma vs. The Semicolon)
Explore English by participating in a grammar correcting activity. Elementary and middle schoolers distinguish when to use commas from when to use semicolons. Then they correct twelve sentences by placing commas and semicolons in the...
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Plate Tectonics
Students participate in a series of experiments to learn about plate tectonics and the different materials of the Earth. In this plate tectonics lesson plan, students use eggs, water, beakers, paper, and more materials to learn about the...
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Just a Spoonful of Rights Makes the Responsibility Go 'Round
Students explore the concept of philanthropy. In this service learning lesson, students define rights and responsibilities. Students discuss the role of philanthropy in contributing to the common good. They also review historical...
Facing History and Ourselves
Verifying Breaking News
The attempts of journalists to verify the events surrounding the shooting of Michael Brown take center stage as individuals analyze three of the initial newspaper accounts of the story. The whole class discussion then focuses...
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Prepositions of Place
In this language arts learning exercise, students read 16 sentences and supply a preposition of place which will make sense in each sentence.
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Newspaper on the Civil War
Students create historically accurate newspapers. In this Civil War lesson, students research Internet and print sources regarding the events, battles, and personalities of the war. Students collaborate to publish newspapers that feature...
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Placement and Organization of Employment Ads
Young scholars locate the classified section within a newspaper, find the employment ads, and examine how the employment ads are categorized and arranged. Lastly, they locate ads for specific jobs.
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Who Owns the World?
Students discover how to turn firsthand knowledge of common products into a useful way of choosing stocks for the Global Stock Game. Once students find the parent company of a product, they can buy shares of stock of the larger company