Two stories by Kate Chopin provide high school freshmen with an opportunity to reflect on the importance of the perspective from which a story is told. Class members read "The Story of an Hour" and a passage from The Awakening, then...

Discover the scale factor by finding the constant of proportionality. Pupils investigate drawings to determine whether the distances are proportional. The activity defines the scale factor as the constant of proportionality, or unit...

Use powers of 10 to convert between fractions and decimals. Pupils convert decimals to fractions by using place values in the 13th installment of a 25-part series. Class members reverse the process and find equivalent fractions with a...

What does the government have to do with getting a driver's license? Including the calorie count for a meal on a restaurant menu? By discussing these kinds of questions and researching how concepts behind federal, state, and local...

Undo the functions. Learners refresh their knowledge of inverses of functions from Algebra II in the 19th section of a 23-part Precalculus unit. Pupils look at inverses in tables and graphs. They then add to their understanding of...

Young historians may be surprised to learn that the Constitution of the United States includes provisions that protect the institution of slavery. Groups examine four clauses of the Constitution, as well as other primary sources, and...

The author study gets an update in a research project designed for high schoolers. Scholars search for information about literary figures that connects them to their times, their works, their themes, and other writers. Researchers also...

What do bees and children have in common? They both love their sweets. Decorate a flower pot or bucket to look like a brightly colored flower and fill it with wrapped candy and cheese puffs. Have learners reach into grab the candy,...

The 15th segment in a series of 22 uses examples that present proportional relationships with fractions. Pupils work through the problems and discover that the process is the same as it is with whole number values. Graphing the...

Class members take scale drawings and examine scales to determine distances in the actual objects. Pupils convert the scales of different units to scale factors that can be used in proportional equations.

What do those points on the graph mean? The 10th instructional activity in a series of 22 presents proportional relationships as graphs. Class members interpret various points of the graph — including the origin — within the context of...

Use ratios to solve problems that are not proportions. The instructional activity has pupils solve multi-step ratio problems that involve fractional increases and decreases. The problems involve mark-ups, discounts, commissions, and...

Learners determine whether there is a constant multiple within the table through an instructional activity that presents a method for determining whether two quantities are proportional. Pupils analyze tables to determine if they...

Does the volume formula work even if the measurements are not whole numbers? Class members work simple problems to find that the formula (area of the base) × (height) works for all prisms, independent of measurements and shape.

Determine the cost of projects based on volume or surface area. Pupils work problems to determine the cost of building a brick planter and a stainless steel feeder in the 27th installment of a 28-part series. Participants must consider...

Introduce learners to two methods to estimate the formula for the area of a circle. The first method uses a sector of a circle to form a rectangle, and the other uses grids to estimate the area. The problems in the 18th segment of a...

The 21st segment in a 28-part series provides learners with area problems involving composite figures. To find the solution, pupils must decide whether to add or subtract areas. The composite figures are composed of quadrilaterals,...

The class makes the connection between finding the area of a right prism and a right pyramid in the 23rd installment in a series of 28. The pupils find the surface area of figures created by stacked cubes and prisms with cutouts.

Scholars build upon their knowledge of scale drawings by using percents to represent the scale factor. Individuals work with scaling in vertical, horizontal, and both directions.

Teach the connection between area models and the distributive property through problem-solving. The 22nd activity in a series of 29 explains the distributive property graphically. Learners build area models from word problems and convert...

Turning 11 comes with a range of emotions. Explore those emotions by reading the short story "Eleven" by Sandra Cisneros. Readers analyze the main character's reactions to the events of her day. Then, they write an essay describing what...

The words of "Common Sense" and Patrick Henry's "Give me liberty or give me death!" speech ring throughout history. Scholars explore the nuances of each patriot's argument using excerpts from the famous pamphlet and speech and a recorded...

What makes a hero? After discussing the term and considering a book about Franklin D. Roosevelt, classmates work together to write a script and present their biography of a Great American hero. Notes sheets help group members organize...

Using sources from various publications and a series of videos, pupils consider the global economy and the positive and negative effects of globalization. With a jigsaw discussion and a writing assignment, scholars weigh in on whether...