Andrea Mulder-Slater (creator of www.KinderArt.com ) designed this lesson to be
used with children ages 5 and older. However, this lesson can be easily adapted to
work with individuals of all ages as a way of identifying and expressing emotions.
Participants will gain an understanding of how much of a role emotion plays in
art-making as they create paintings based on feelings.

In this Animating Civic Action lesson, from the Washington Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction and Washington State Governor's Office of the Education Ombuds, students listen to the story of Jared, a student experiencing homelessness. Students are asked to examine what it means to be homeless, to identify how homelessness affects people and to and to consider ways they can act to take action against homelessness in their school community.

In this Animating Civic Action lesson, from the Washington Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction, students listen to the story of Esther, a student refugee, about her experience in school. Students are asked to examine what it means to stereotype others, and to consider ways they can act to make their community more welcoming and inclusive.  

Often throughout American history former refugees rise to be community leaders dedicating their lives to helping others. Refugees often overcome key obstacles including language and culture to become important activists addressing social and political problems. Refugees offer key perspectives on the application of civic virtues and human rights. In this lesson students will hear from three refugee students about their experiences. Then, students will be asked to:Identify and describe obstacles student refugees encounter while assimilating at school.Identify reasons why refugees go on to develop a strong sense of civic duty and desire to give back to their communities. Research and identify ways they can take civic action to build a better community.

Students will build empathy to be “helpers” and make a difference in the lives of others through consideration of two questions: How can we listen effectively to better understand people’s stories, and how can we respond to and communicate effectively to peoples’ stories? Students will then propose opportunities to take action to improve our community response to support all students and their communities.

The COVID-19 Pandemic is a clear example of how science and society are connected. This unit explores how different communities are differentially impacted by the virus through the lens of historical inequities in society. In the context of decisions their families make, students explore the basics of how the virus affects people, and design investigations to explore how it spreads from person to person, and what we can do to prevent that spread.

COVID-19 has caused so many changes in our lives. What are we doing differently now? Why are we doing those things, and how do we feel about all of the changes? In the context of decisions their families make, students explore the basics of how the virus affects people, and design investigations to explore how it spreads from person to person, and what we can do to prevent that spread.

This unit is designed to support students in understanding the COVID-19 pandemic, transmission of the COVID-19 virus, and the impacts of the pandemic on communities, especially communities of color. Specific learning targets are listed at the beginning of each lesson and highlight a core idea for the lesson, the science and engineering practice students will engage in, and the crosscutting concept students will use in the lesson.

Sphere provides educators with viewpoint diverse resources to bring conversations to the classroom and equip students to engage in civil discourse. Sphere offers lesson plans, discussion questions, videos, and publications on various topics for use in the classroom that are exclusively nonpartisan.

In this activity from Commonwealth Theatre Center in Louisville, Kentucky, students can write and perform a monologue addressed to a selected emotion describing their experiences with the emotion and why they would like to spend more or less time together. Students will better understand their relationship with their emotions and communicate complex ideas.

Students will look at images and determine how they have been altered. Discuss why someone might alter photographs that are online.

This Digital Citizenship unit was created by the Snohomish School District. This strand in the unit focuses on: Evaluating Resources and

Students will look at two websites for services for dogs to try to determine which one is the fake site. Discuss why someone might create fake websites and how to spot a fake website.

Students will look at images and determine how they have been altered. Discuss why someone might alter photographs that are online.

There are many resources on the internet and students need to learn how to determine if the information is false or accurate.

Students will be able to identify the Google is not a resource and determine that Wikipedia is not a credible source for research.  

Students will look at images and determine how they have been altered. Discuss why someone might alter photographs that are online.

Feelings Mandala

A Copyrighted Activity Created by and Re-posted with Permission from
Kristina Marcelli Sargent
https://kristinamarcelli.wordpress.com

Objectives:
The participants will:
1. Be introduced to the art form of mandalas
2. Explore emotions and assign a color for each emotion
3. Reflect on their personal emotions and color in a mandala to represent the frequency of their emotions by using space and color

Audience:
Kristina designed this activity for children but it can easily be adapted to all ages. It is an excellent way for the participants to explore emotions.

Financial Education & SEL, K-5Explore the natural connection between financial education and social-emotional learning! In this training, participants will dig into standards alignment and review three strategies for implementing SEL-based personal finance in the elementary classroom, with an emphasis on DEI and underserved student populations. Educators will walk away empowered to integrate SEL and financial education using “grab and go” resources, ideas, and lesson plans. 

In the Future of Electric Transportation Design Challenge - a soup-to-nuts curriculum toolkit from Construct - you'll ask young people to find new and novel ways to increase use & equitable access to electric vehicles.

This comprehensive toolkit is intended for classroom teachers and other educators interested in running a multi-week or full-term design challenge with students. The guide is written with 8th-9th graders as a target grade level, however this curriculum could easily be adapted for both older and younger students: 5th-12th grade.

An optional feature in this challenge experience is to have students submit their design briefs (anonymously from their teacher) for the opportunity to be recognized by Construct and Industry Leaders interested in their concepts!

A teacher running this Transportation Design Challenge could connect it to multiple standards at multiple grade-levels in multiple subject areas.

Construct has facilitated several cohort-based challenges for middle and high school students, using this toolkit, and we are excited to be able to provide this curriculum at no charge to any interested teachers.

We are happy to answer any questions - you can reach us at info@constructlearns.org. We also offer additional coaching support.

Please download this Challenge and share it with your colleagues! If you opt to run the Challenge in your classroom, we do hope you'll reach back and let us know how it worked for YOU! With your feedback, we'll keep iterating and improving and work to make this a user-friendly, joy-provoking, flexible, rigorous, effective, skills-building and FUN curriculum toolkit for you and your students.