This overview of energy, cellular respiration and photosynthesis summarizes important concepts and common misconceptions. It also suggests a sequence of learning activities to overcome misconceptions, develop student understanding of important concepts, and relate these concepts to familiar topics such as breathing, food, body weight, and plant growth.
Material Type: Activity/Lab, Lesson Plan, Unit of Study
This article highlights lesson plans and activities that help elementary students develop map skills as they learn earth science concepts.
Material Type: Lesson Plan
Students explore their towns' landmarks, symbols, and people; look at brochures and other informational tools; practice writing for a specific audience and revising; and work collaboratively to create a brochure.
Material Type: Activity/Lab, Lesson Plan, Unit of Study
Students will be introduced to different species of macroinvertebrates. They will hypothesize why each insect looks the way it does. Then students will make observations of macroinvertebrates. in an aquarium in their classroom. For an optional extension, teachers can take students to a local stream or pond to conduct field observations. The purpose of this activity is to introduce students to hydrology and the study of macroinvertebrates. and to understand how macroinvertebrates. help scientists understand water quality. After completing this activity, students will have an understanding of what macroinvertebrates. are and why scientists study them.
Material Type: Activity/Lab, Diagram/Illustration, Interactive, Lesson Plan, Textbook
smARThistory.org is a free multi-media web-book designed as a dynamic enhancement (or even substitute) for the traditional and static art history textbook.
Material Type: Activity/Lab, Lecture, Lecture Notes, Reading, Textbook
The American Yawp constructs a coherent and accessible narrative from all the best of recent historical scholarship. Without losing sight of politics and power, it incorporates transnational perspectives, integrates diverse voices, recovers narratives of resistance, and explores the complex process of cultural creation. It looks for America in crowded slave cabins, bustling markets, congested tenements, and marbled halls. It navigates between maternity wards, prisons, streets, bars, and boardrooms. Whitman’s America, like ours, cut across the narrow boundaries that strangle many narratives. Balancing academic rigor with popular readability, The American Yawp offers a multi-layered, democratic alternative to the American past.
Material Type: Textbook
We live on the continent of North America in the country of the United States. There are 50 states in this great country and as citizens of the United States we should know what those states are. In this seminar you will learn the names and locations of all 50 states. Wow your friends and family with your geographical knowledge! Standards7.1.4.B Describe and locate places and regions as defined by physical and human features.
Material Type: Lesson Plan
In this seminar you will learn about different types of communities. During the activities, you will get to explore the pros and cons of each type of community. You will use this knowledge to compare and contrast the three types of communities. Then you will be in charge of choosing a community type to build a new school in and try to persuade your audience to agree with you!Standards5.2.4.A - Identify individual rights and needs and the rights and needs of others in the classroom, school, and community.
Material Type: Lesson Plan
We live on the continent of North America and in the great country of the United States. The United States is split into five different regions. In this seminar you will learn about the five regions and their characteristics.Standards7.1.4.B Describe and locate places and regions as defined by physical and human features.
Material Type: Lesson Plan
Our age-appropriate classroom lessons and activities for grades K-12 aim to deepen your students' understanding of September 11 and develop their critical thinking skills. The guide, written by Morningside Center executive director Tom Roderick, also includes recommended books and other teaching ideas.
Material Type: Lesson Plan, Teaching/Learning Strategy
This Anne Frank unit is designed with several lessons of various lengths. These lessons are usable in many different disciplines. Using one, several, or all of the lessons will address the unit's objectives to some degree. Students will accomplish some or all of the objectives depending on the number and nature of the lessons in which they participate.
Material Type: Activity/Lab, Lesson Plan, Unit of Study
The 1960s and 70s comprised some of the most tumultuous eras in American history. The people were using their voices to express dissatisfaction with their government. This lesson provides a brief history of America’s involvement in Vietnam and surrounding areas. The focal point of the lesson is the resistance on the American homefront. In this lesson, you will discover first-hand how men were drafted for the Vietnam War and understand the draft’s role in the anti-war movement of the 1960s and 70s. You will analyze and interpret multiple primary source documents to consider anti-war sentiment in the United States. StandardsCC.8.5.11-12.A: Cite specific textual evidence to support analysis of primary and secondary sources, connecting insights gained from specific details to an understanding of the text as a whole.CC.8.6.11-12.A: Write arguments focused on discipline-specific content.
Material Type: Lesson Plan
In The New Jim Crow, Michelle Alexander explores complex questions about the criminal justice system and the history of race and racial justice in the United States.
Material Type: Lesson
What are the most salient similarities between mass incarceration and Jim Crow? Mass incarceration is a system of racialized social control that, like slavery and Jim Crow before it, operates to discriminate and create a stigmatized racial group locked into an inferior position by law and custom.
Material Type: Lesson
In the early 1900s, Mexican Americans, or Chicanos, in California and the Southwest were excluded from "Whites Only" theaters, parks, swimming pools, restaurants, and even schools. Immigrants from Mexico waged many battles against such discriminatory treatment, often risking their jobs in fields and factories and enduring threats of deportation. In 1945, one couple in California won a significant victory in their struggle to secure the best education for thousands of Chicano children.
Material Type: Activity/Lab, Reading
The Lady Thunderhawks are the Oneida Nation High School girls basketball team. Jessica House, a senior and captain of the team, considers how the team supports her identity as a member of her community and the Oneida Nation. The story explores the role of the basketball team in the community and highlights the importance of language and culture in school.
Material Type: Lecture, Primary Source
The Council of Foreign Relations (CFR) InfoGuide on The Taliban examines the two Talibans, in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and the consequences for the region. CFR InfoGuides are a multimedia series to promote understanding of complex foreign policy issues.
Material Type: Case Study, Interactive, Reading
Which side will win as students investigate both sides of the battle of using print versus online text for research as they learn about the lives of Civil War soldiers?
Material Type: Activity/Lab, Lesson Plan
This unit has been developed to guide students and instructors in a close reading of Lincoln’s “Gettysburg Address.” The activities and actions described below follow a carefully developed set of steps that assist students in increasing their familiarity and understanding of Lincoln’s speech through a series of text dependent tasks and questions that ultimately develop college and career ready skills identified in the Common Core State Standards.
Material Type: Lecture, Lesson Plan, Reading
This Political Cartoon, published in Harper's Weekly in October 1862, shortly after the Battle of Antietam, summarizes the idea behind the Emancipation Proclamation. In it an axe-wielding President Lincoln threatens to cut down the tree a Confederate Soldier is using as refuge. Labeled "Slavery," the tree/soldier relationship in the cartoon is meant to convey the idea that slavery in the south was supporting the Confederate war effort - note also the poor state the Southern soldier appears to be in, shoeless and ragged (one Maryland resident who observed the invading Confederate army described them as "scarecrows"). Lincoln sought to frame the Emancipation of slaves as a "fit and necessary war measure for suppressing [the] rebellion," arguing that ending slavery in the south would deprive the Confederate army of the Home Front labor support slaves provided, thus ending the war quicker. The comic is specifically about the Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation (issued at the end of Sept, 1862), which was a warning to the South that if they did not cease their rebellion before January 1, 1863, he would pass the formal Emancipation Proclamation - hence the title "Lincoln's Last Warning."
Material Type: Primary Source
