There's no such thing as the perfect crime! Your class of sleuths are ready to investigate the trace evidence at a crime scene and compare it to a list of suspects. They use their investigative skills to record physical properties of the...

Saving sugar, growing crops, and not eating meat sound like small things, but they were a huge part of the home front effort during World War I. Photographic evidence of civilian struggles during the war, along with a matching game,...

Things should heat up during a hands-on lesson exploring solar energy. An enlightening activity challenges young scientists to design a structure that collects solar energy efficiently. They keep track of temperature data over time and...

Walt Whitman's poem "As I Walk These Broad Majestic Days" offers scholars an opportunity to practice their noticing skills. They first examine a postcard of the Newport News Shipyard listing things they notice about the image and how...

Wouldn't it be lovely if people were immune from colds and flu? Alas, such is not the case; however, there are things we can do to avoid getting or spreading these pesky health hazards. Middle schoolers read articles that provide them...

Stress isn't necessarily a bad thing. The key, however, is learning how to appreciate eustress and manage distress. "Parachute Stress," a lesson designed for high school freshmen, has them identify 10 major stressors as well as the...

The goal of this Health Smart lesson plan is for freshmen to develop a personal system for coping with stress. They create a power-up list of things that make them feel happier, healthier, or better connected, identify people in their...

Always strive to make things better. The second of three activities in the Experimenting with Solar Heaters unit has learners design new solar heaters that are more effective compared to the simple models they used in the previous lesson...

For many high schoolers, what they want to be when they grow up can be very intimidating. Here's an activity that gets them thinking about their interests and how they might connect these interests to future jobs. After watching a short...

What kind of wind works best to make things move? After watching a short video from Curious George, super scientists answer the question by testing various wind-making tools. Learners observe, record, and share their findings.

Things can always be made better. The culminating installment in the seven-part Understanding Science and Engineering unit has pupils design their own water pumps. In groups, they build a prototype of a design of their choice, then test...

Discuss all things round and round. Pupils review finding area and the circumference of circles and use them to solve problems. Next, they learn about central angles and their relationships to measures of arcs. Learners then find out how...

A pop-up video version of FDR's "Day of Infamy" speech engages scholars in depending their understanding of the attack on Pearl Harbor. After watching the video, class members select five new things that they learned and research how...

Three activities focus on the First Amendment, especially the freedom of speech. Scholars craft a letter to the President of the United States and express their views about a topic important to them. Another activity has participants...

Civics scholars are challenged to determine what it means to be a good citizen. Class members select three adults in their lives and interview them to discover what the term "good citizen" means to each of these people. The class then...

What does race have to do with COVID vaccine hesitancy? That is the question young scholars pursue in a video lesson that looks at the impacts of such things as the Tuskegee Experiment, the unauthorized use of Henrietta Lacks's cancer...

Langston Hughes' "Theme for English B" is featured in a lesson that asks pupils to first read a biography of Hughes and list things about his life they think are important. The class then reads the poem and compares what they learned...

Challenges to voting rights is not a new thing. Using President Lyndon B. Johnson's 1965 "The American Promise" speech on voting rights as a starting point, young historians research current voting rights laws and challenges.

Marian Wright Edelman's 2014 Commencement Speech at Lewis and Clark College serves to inspire young scholars to investigate a problem in their community, to determine why the problem is important, and then to develop a plan for one thing...

Would a rose smell as sweet, as Juliet Capulet asserts, if called by any other name? The importance of names and the connection between names and identity are examined in a lesson plan that explores identity in the United States. After...

Encourage self-motivation with an activity that allows scholars to reflect on their challenges and set goals to better them. A script prompts pupils to listen to the Can-Do Coach inside them. An inspiring statement reminds...

With all due respect to Beatrice, Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing speaks with both mirth and matter. With the help of this guide, readers will fall in love with the "skirmish of wit" between Beatrice and Benedick, the hysterical...

The big idea in this resource is that listening and hearing are not the same things. A lesson on active listening has class members generate a list of listening techniques that focus on the speaker, confirm what they say, and respond...

Don't put off this lesson! Using a self-survey, middle schoolers take a close look at why they procrastinate and identify some of the things they do to put off actions they know they should take. They then reflect on the consequences and...