Public Media for Northern California
An Educator’s Guide to Teaching Gun Control Issues | The Lowdown
The topic of gun control is vast, controversial, and difficult to introduce to students. This gem of a resource covers both sides of the issue and provides topic background, various multimedia and print resources, analysis questions, and...
Curated OER
Law of Conservation of Momentum
A suggested sequence of events lays out five hands-on activities and four creative assessments on the conservation of momentum. Using spring scales and mail scales, junior physicists examine Newton's Third Law. After you have taught the...
Curated OER
Work and Energy
The first activity may not work for your class if you don't have access to an open area of 30 meters and two cars of different masses, but the remaining activities can be used in any physics course. They all involve the investigation of...
Curated OER
The Periodic Table, Electrons, and Chemical Bonds
Four activities immerse beginning chemists into the world of elements. They examine the periodic table, use cobalt hydroxide to learn about chemical formulae and valence electrons. Also, they name binary compounds and examine the...
Curated OER
Evidence Revealing the Composition of the Atom
Investigators use indirect evidence to guess what is occupying a sealed box. You could also use a set of plastic Easter eggs to encase the unknown items. Another terrific activity involves having learners drop a pencil on a sheet of...
Curated OER
The Circulatory System--Part VI
Learners outline a body on butcher paper. Students fill in the circulatory system using materials of various textures. Learners decorate all the parts of the circulatory system with art articles, like buttons, yarn, etc.
EngageNY
Reading and Taking Notes on Colonial Trades
In the tenth instructional activity of this unit, young scholars learn to categorize information as they continue researching their colonial trade. During guided practice, the teacher models how to read informational text slowly while...
Curated OER
Understanding the Bush Tax Cut Plan
The class examines the new tax cut plan proposed by President Bush. They practice calculating income tax rates and interpreting the data. Then they research topics that are of interest to them related to taxes.
EngageNY
Mid-Unit 2 Assessment: On-Demand Informational Writing
Lesson 7 focuses on building academic vocabulary and writing an explanatory letter with supported textual evidence. For the first five minutes of the lesson plan, the educator reminds the class of how to read and refer to the accordion...
Curated OER
Structures And Mechanisms
Eighth graders explore and demonstrate an understanding of the factors that contribute to the efficient operation of mechanisms and simple machines. They design and make a mechanical toy device that moves a given object a specified...
Curated OER
Dropping (and Adding) Names in Washington
Students research and create profiles of key figures in the current administration and those people who are speculated to play a role if George W. Bush is re-elected in the 2004 election.
Curated OER
Meadow Madness
Students explore the evolution from a pond habitat to a meadow. In this habitat lesson, students become familiar with a beaver meadow habitat. Students are aasigned an animal to research and find why the animal best survives in that...
Curated OER
Exploration of 'pill bugs'
Fifth graders define words. They create a dichotomous key. After carefully examining pill bugs, 5th graders record observations. They compare and contrast habitats of pillbugs.
Curated OER
Genetic Engineering
Students identify relationships between scientific concepts and their historical roots. They discuss and debate issues of ethics in science, specifically on the concept of genetic engineering and describe the processes of cloning and...
Curated OER
The Art of Speech
Students discuss President Bush's goals for his second term in office. After reading an article, they identify the major themes of his second inaugural address. In groups, they brainstorm ideas and create murals to illustrate them...
Curated OER
Crisis Management
Learners research the issues facing President Bush and write short political commentaries predicting what course the president take. For homework, they write editorials stating what they think the president should do to best serve the...
Curated OER
Teachers.Net Toy Parade (Elementary, Reading/Writing
Children bring in a toy, favorite or otherwise, and describe it using adjectives and adverbs. They fold a piece of paper into two columns, and list the adjectives on one side, and the adverbs on the other.
Curated OER
Let the Games Begin!
Third graders use K-W-L charts to brainstorm a list of questions they would like to answer about sports. While visiting a Web site, 3rd graders research a chosen sport and complete their K-W-L chart.
Curated OER
Dubois and Washington Venn Diagram
Students compare and contrast the visions of W.E.B. Dubois and Booker T. Washington. For this African American history lesson, students read biographies about both men and create a Venn diagram about the men.
Curated OER
Formal versus Informal Language
Engage in an activity that focuses on the concepts of formal and informal language use. Middle and high schoolers compare and contrast each style by using a Venn diagram that includes some examples. They read and hear a passage of lyrics...
Curated OER
Writing Effective Thesis Statements and Introductory Paragraphs for Research Papers
After reading on the topic of their paper, high schoolers work in pairs to assess how to write powerful, precise thesis statements. The introduction contains three statements: a universal statement, a bridge statement, and a thesis...
Science Matters
Earth Shaking Events
The world's largest measured earthquake happened in 1960 in Chile, reaching a terrifying 9.5 magnitude on the Richter Scale. The second lesson in the 20-part series introduces earthquakes and fault lines. Scholars map where previous...
EngageNY
End of Unit 3 Assessment: Writing a Research Synthesis
Ready, set, write! Scholars work on the end-of-unit assessment by completing a writing prompt. They then look at the model performance task from instructional activity two to create a rubric for scoring the exercise. Using turn and talk,...