Future leaders engage in a modified of "Rock, Paper, Scissors" game to gain insight into their approach to leadership. At the end of the game, participants were asked to consider whether they were focused on winning the game or on...

Pairs work together to determine whether unknown solutions are either acids or bases by using a red cabbage indicator solution. After determining the general pH of the unknown solution, classmates blow into the same indicator after...

What I know. What I want to know. What you need to know. These are the questions that form the basis for a displayed thinking activity that encourages future leaders to "set out with intention and purpose."

Use the pump from a spray bottle to drive a model of the heart in action! In addition to modeling the function of the heart and blood vessels, aspiring anatomists also simulate arterial blockage. They compare the effects of increased...

Who, what, when, where, and why questions are often the questions that teachers use to foster engagement, verbal communication skills, higher-order thinking, and hopefully, a deeper understanding of the world. This tool is geared toward...

The choices made by Roy Bryant and J.W. Millam, the men who murdered Emmett Till in 1955, are usually the ones people ponder when they examine the case. But other individuals made choices that contributed to the event and its subsequent...

What makes a society civil? High school freshmen search for examples of justice, kindness, peace, and tolerance in news media and brainstorm how they can promote these attributes in their schools, communities, and world. The well-rounded...

Create a variable list of problems. Groups come up with four scenarios. Each situation represents different types of variation, direct, inverse, joint, and combined. Teams then generate questions about their contextual problems for...

Given four sets of data, zombie-loving mathematicians find the mode, range, mean, and median for each set. The sheet is more challenging if calculators are not used; but the data set with large numbers may require a calculator.

The sun shines, flowers bloom, and bugs fly—it must be Spring! Add a cheerful theme of bugs and flowers to math and literacy centers. Scholars take part in an assortment of activities designed to reinforce concepts such as...

Here is a very nice lesson on the shape of the United States, and the shapes of the individual states for your young geographers. They utilize worksheets embedded in the plan to color in a variety of states and to become familiar with...

Political ads as primary source documents? But of course. Viewers analyze the strategies involved in the Republican Party's 1984 advertisement in support of Ronald Reagan's reelection. 

Find out just how smart your young mathematicians are with this cross-curricular math and language arts lesson. After first reading Shel Silverstein's poem "Smart", students draw pictures of coins to model the different exchanges...

What causes sound? Groups of sound detectives use a variety of tools including ping pong balls, pasta noodles, raisins, rubber mallets, and a tuning fork to investigate what causes sound. The young Sherlocks conduct a series of...

Motivate young citizens to make a positive difference through volunteering. Scholars examine the local and school community to discover ways the class, as a whole, can volunteer their time to help one or the other, then reflect on their...

Want a handy way to remember the difference between metaphors and similes, or allusions and alliteration? Individuals craft their own figurative language booklet, complete with definitions, examples, and illustrations, following...

What famous children's author and illustrator created World War II political cartoons featuring such subjects as fascism, the war effort, discrimination, and the dangers of isolationism? The who in this story is Dr. Seuss, and what...

It just multiplies out. The lesson provides the rules for operations with exponents and keeps them as positive integers in the lesson. Videos explain the rules for the operations with exponents while working out examples. 

Develop a graph to represent the distance between two cars. The assessment task presents a scenario in which two cars are traveling at constant speeds with one faster than the other. Pupils develop graphical representations to show the...

Get young people thinking about their lives and current topics of social justice, advocacy, gender, race, and identity. After examining several works by Barbara Kruger, participants select a tag with one of the questions printed on it,...

Boost mental-math skills with an interactive that focuses on dividing whole numbers by powers of 10. Mathematicians solve five fill-in-the-blank and multiple-choice questions with help from a moveable decimal point in four example...

Readers of Neal Shusterman's young adult science fiction novel, Unwind, record what they know, what they want to know, how the will find answers to the questions, on a KWHL chart.

A penny can be a much more valuable teaching tool that you might think. Whether you are teaching about chemical reactions, surface tension, the behavior of gases, or are just looking for engaging activities for early finishers,...

Encourage readers of Nightjohn, Gary Paulsen's young adult novel about slavery set shortly before the Civil War, to develop their categorization and organizational skills with a strategy that asks them to list all the words they can...