There's more to that glowing ball of light in sky than most children realize. From the overall structure of the solar system, to the changing of the seasons, these hands-on lessons open the eyes of young scientists to...

The bowhead whale of the Arctic region is of great importance to the people that live there. Your class will brainstorm all they know about this wonderful whale and create an informational video, which they will share with the children...

A comprehensive and immersive series of lessons that examines various aspects of story development leads learners into writing a narrative of their own. Writers develop an understanding of the writing process as they use the learning...

Make a study of perspective in the real world. Learners examine and discuss works of art that show examples of perspective before trying their own hands at it. Using a grid drawn on transparent paper, class members transfer a view from a...

Redesign your holiday celebrations with the aid of a lesson plan booklet packed with facts, images, maps, activities, and readings about the three-day feast that marked the English settlers' first successful harvest.

Celebration or protest song? The full text of Woody Guthrie's "This Land is Your Land" opens a study of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, the Louisiana Purchase, and Western Expansion from various perspectives. Middle schoolers examine...

Based on their understanding of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the Rights of Migrants in the United States, groups adopt a human rights perspective and analyze media reports to evaluate how the US is addressing the...

Historical events can be viewed from multiple perspectives. This simple truth is brought home in a lesson that examines primary source documents related to the Lewis and Clark Expedition, the Doctrine of Discovery and Manifest Destiny,...

Is Holden Caulfield a trustworthy narrator? Groups work together to find evidence in The Catcher in the Rye to support a yes or no stance.

A picture is worth a thousand words, but sometimes a single word can go a long way as well. Practice making inferences about character traits with a letter written from the perspective of a soldier in the American Revolution.

Individuals read a series of passages from The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, rank the statements from the least to the most racist or stereotypical, and share their rankings and rationales in small groups before a whole class...

Imagine being on the front line of the Civil War —from the front porch of your own house. Scholars use visual evidence from primary and secondary sources to analyze the impact of the Civil War on all Americans. They examine the research...

Once Americans won the Revolutionary War, their quest to gain land did not end. An interesting activity focuses on Americans' expansion into the frontier following the war and how it conflicted with Native Americans living in the area....

How did the United States respond to the Holocaust refugee crisis during World War II? The activity focuses on the United States' foreign policies and the arguments for and against offering assistance. Scholars analyze historical...

"I have here in my hand . . ." The war against Communism and Joseph McCarthy’s place in it are the focus of a series of lessons examining postwar America from 1945-1954. Joseph McCarthy takes center stage in this, the final lesson...

What do you imagine when you think of the sea? Put on some ocean sounds, close your eyes, and listen to a guided meditation based on the imagery from The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway. After class members listen to...

Six diverse activities make up a substantial unit on the women's rights movement in the United States, past and present. A few of the topics at hand: the fourteenth and nineteenth amendments, the Equal Pay Act, the Lily Ledbetter Act,...

Have you ever wanted to do something so perfectly you wound up not doing it well at all? Young historians use primary and secondary documents to analyze the United States involvement in the Vietnam War. The issues surrounding the...

High schoolers understand the basic political events of the French Revolution, broken down into four stages, and the shifts of power during each stage. They examine how the members of the Third Estate gained not only political but also...

Is peace simply the absence of war, or is there more to the story? Young social scientists define peace in the second installment of a 15-part series. Groups work together to explore cultural concepts of peace and the peacemaking process...

Much like a garden, once the seeds of peace are planted, they need to be tended! How can humankind make and keep peace? The second installment in a series of 15 peacebuilding activities focuses on different perceptions of peace. The...

Gain some perspective on linear pairs. Aspiring mathematicians adjust the vanishing point on a perspective drawing. They see the effect on linear pairs of angles and answer five challenge questions based on their observations.

After completing the first five chapters of The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle By Avi, use direct quotes to make inferences about how Charlotte feels about certain characters. Later, when the novel has concluded, revisit...

Can you move like a photon? Young scholars use a maze to reproduce the straight line motion of a photon. The second in a six-part series of lessons on the sun has learners measure angle of incidence and refraction to determine the path...