Lesson Plan
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Create a Classroom Exhibit: Rocks and Minerals

For Teachers 4th - 5th
Students bring in rocks and minerals from home. They observe them and describe them carefully, completing a worksheet. Finally, a classroom exhibit is created.
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Rocks and Minerals

For Teachers 5th - 8th
Learners bring rocks and minerals from home to investigate in the classroom. In this rocks and minerals lesson plan, students observe all the rocks and minerals brought into the class and answer 7 questions about the features of the...
Lesson Plan
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How Size Shapes Animals

For Teachers Pre-K - 3rd
Learners investigate how size affects large and small animals differently. In this animal lesson plan, students determine how size affects different animals by constructing their own animal out of marshmallows. Once learners create...
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Land Use and Lawmaking in California

For Teachers 9th - 12th
Learners design a plan for a housing development in their city. In this house development lesson plan, students observe pictures of land use, research lawmaking, and develop a plan for an environmentally friendly housing development in...
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American Indians

For Teachers 2nd - 4th
Students research early Indian adaptations in this lesson. They research the different American Indian tribes. They also research and compare the tribes' rituals, daily lives, and their impact on the Europeans who came later to the...
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With Liberty and Justice for All

For Teachers 9th - 12th
High schoolers examine the role of Supreme Court justices. For this judicial branch lesson, students consider the civil rights and civil liberties as they investigate Minersville School District v. Gobitis (1940) and West Virginia State...
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Japan: Images of a People

For Teachers 3rd - 6th
Students learn the geography of Japan and its location in reference to the United States.
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JAPAN, IMAGES A PEOPLE

For Teachers 9th - 10th
Students interpret Japanese and American paintings; evaluate paintings as sources of cultural and historical information
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Migration - An African-American Adventure During WWI

For Teachers 6th
Sixth graders explore the push/pull factors that influenced the South to North migration.  In this African-American migration lesson, 6th graders read an article and answer comprehension questions. Students write a letter to the...
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The Four Freedoms

For Teachers 3rd - 8th
Students discuss the four freedoms. In this freedom activity, students discuss freedom of speech, freedom to worship any God, freedom from want, and freedom from fear. They create a picture to match each freedom and make a book shaped...
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Altoona Horseshoe Curve: A Vital Link

For Teachers 9th - 12th
Students explain the significance of the Horseshoe Curve.  For this railroad lesson students reconstruct elements of a German plot to destroy the Horseshoe Curve. 
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Music As Survival: Alma Rose and the Auschwitz Women's Orchestra

For Teachers 9th - 12th
Students explore a period of European history in which musicians have used theri musical talents and abilities to survive and rise above extremely difficult situations. The psychological uses of music by the Nazis is examined in this...
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Trash Flash Through Time

For Teachers 3rd - 5th
Young scholars describe ways in which solid waste was disposed in the past and the present. They survey an older citizen about his/her solid waste disposal methods. They discover solid waste practices from long ago.
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The Pennsylvania Turnpike: Then and Now

For Teachers 4th - 5th
Students study the history of the Pennsylvania Turnpike. For this Pennsylvania history activity, students use primary documents to study the history of the Pennsylvania Turnpike. In a culminating activity, students create an...
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"Disapproved": Censorship of Film in Pennsylvania

For Teachers 10th - 12th
Students analyze primary source documents of the 1920s to find the roots of film censorship and understand Pennsylvania's leadership in this movement. They analyze government censorship documents that banned a film in Pennsylvania and...
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Flawed Democracies, Human Rights

For Teachers K - 5th
Students create drawing that tell a story about a young girl's life in an internment camp. In this internment camp lesson plan, students hear stories and analyze photographs of internment camps and then create their own drawings.
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Nature's Polyhedrons

For Teachers 9th - 12th
Students are introduced to polyhedrons through using straw models to explore geometric solids and constructing Christmas tree ornaments using Epsom salt crystals. Students will view interactive videos and investigate and retrieve...
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Focused Learning Lesson: American History

For Teachers 11th
Eleventh graders examine the 1920s which was known as the "Roaring Twenties". They identify the Harlem Renaissance, Prohibition, and the Women's Suffrage movement.
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The Works Progress Administration and the New Deal

For Teachers 6th - 12th
Students research the Depression Era and how it contributed to the formation of the Works Progress Administration. After research, they create a skit to illustrate life during the Depression and the role of the Works Progress...
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Cryptography on the TI-83 Graphing Calculator

For Teachers 9th - 12th
Students explore the history of cryptography. They assess function notation and transformation, matrix operations, and the fundamentals of modular arithmetic. Using graphing calculators, students develop their own encryption schemes.
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Taxed Tempers Toss Tea To Tides

For Teachers 8th - 12th
Engage learners in persuasive writing, research, and creative thinking. They research the series of events that led to the Boston Tea Party and create brochures that include propaganda intended to rally Patriot support or dissuade...
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Wings, Chrome, and Tailfins: Automobiles of the 1950s

For Teachers 8th - 11th
Students study the automobile industry. In this cultural history lesson plan, students explore 1950s America as they view a teacher-created PowerPoint presentation regarding the 1950s. Students research how the automobile changed the...
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Jazz in America

For Teachers 7th - 8th
Students explore different instruments and what role they play in Jazz. They also each person's role in a democratic society.
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Spy on a Spider

For Teachers 3rd - 8th
Learners view slides or live specimens to name and describe the distinguishing features of groups of arthropods, especially spiders and insects. They complete worksheets, observe webs and then search for and record where spiders can be...