Teach middle schoolers how to develop healthy relationships with activities and lessons designed to create a kind and inclusive classroom. Pupils create guidelines to develop a safe and civil learning environment. They learn how to...

Recognize risky behaviors and avoid them! That's the big idea behind two activities designed to teach middle schoolers to think critically about online safety. After reading background articles about protecting online identity,...

Jane Hirshfield's poem "My Skeleton" asks readers to pause and think about the amazing, often taken-for-granted structure that protects and gives form to human bodies. After observing the human skeleton's image, class members read the...

Make pathogens and the body's defense systems come alive for young biologists in a hands-on activity. Investigators model the skin's protection against infection by observing and comparing changes in a punctured tomato and an intact...

 "Give us your tired, your poor, your huddled masses" has even more meaning for some children. The resource explores the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program. Scholars analyze primary sources and participate in...

It's hard to imagine a world where women were marginalized from the seats of power. Yet, there are women today who remember what it was like to not be allowed to vote. Using a DBQ of images and other primary sources, such as political...

Ideas take flight in an exciting activity exploring the Wright Brothers. Scholars view the Wright Brothers' patent for their flying machine and makes educated guesses as to the purpose of the document. Scholars discuss the purpose of...

Reconstruction amendments: a helping hand or another form of slavery? An inquisitive lesson compares the Reconstruction legislation that ended slavery, granted citizenship, and protected voting right for African American men. Scholars...

Just how do astronauts stay safe during moon landings? Here's an activity that allows investigators to use the engineering process to explore how shock absorbers protect astronauts during landing. Applying knowledge of gravity, force,...

A fiction and nonfiction text, The Great Kapok Tree: A Tale of the Amazon Rain Forest by Lynne Cherry and I See a Kookaburra! Discovering Animal Habitats Around the World by Steve Jenkins and Robin Page begins a learning experience in...

As a part of a study of the First Amendment, high schoolers research a current news story that seems to involve one of the freedoms granted by the First Amendment. Investigators decide whether they think the action presented in the story...

Three activities focus on the need to have rules. Young historians are first challenged to suggest rules for their classroom and then to create their own constitution that balances the need for freedoms and protections. The third...

While a woman didn't invent the parasol, three women received patents for their improvements to the original design of umbrellas. In the first of a two-part series on inventive women, class members investigate the patent system to...

Protect yourself from identity theft! Establishing a strong understanding of the Pythagorean identity allows learners to prove that sine^2x + cos^2x = 1. They then use the identity to find sine or cosine ratios given the other.

What is the central idea of the Fourteenth Amendment? Scholars attempt to answer the question as they read and discuss the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which guarantees all citizens equal protection of the...

The class explores and debates, from multiple perspectives, a petition to allow Hopi Indians to take golden eagle hatchlings from a federal wildlife sanctuary for use in a religious ceremony. Pupils defend their personal views on the...

Address myths and stereotypes surrounding HIV and AIDS in this lesson plan. Students discuss how the disease is transmitted, how to properly apply a condom, and how to handle real life situations. Note: A number of extension activities,...

Difficult redistricting concepts are covered in a context that will make it understandable to your government scholars. They begin with a KWL on the term redistricting and then watch a video to answer some questions. They...

Students create sun protection devices by modeling sunglasses invented by native people of the Arctic and study about protecting the body from sun exposure. They write a small paragraph explaining and justifying why they believe a...

Students explore the Endangered Species Act and the work of scientists who strive to protect species.

Students design, revise and construct a method for protecting an egg from cracking when it is dropped from a height. They work in small groups to develop their protection method and then collect and analyze data as a class when each...

Seventh graders engage in critical thinking skills about personal health and safety to prevent the acquiring of the HIV disease. The project is an extension of this thinking designed for students to think about all the different ways...

Bright colors and animation are great ways to attract a young students attention. Students are introduced to the concepts of renewable and non-renewable resources as they pose the question, will our resources be around forever? This...

This simple lesson introduces children to basic marine life as well as to show them the necessity of protecting aquatic environments. Some famous marine life animals are introduced via vocabulary words, then children cut out pictures of...