Curated OER
Project Wetlands
Students develop a joint undertaking designed to solve an environmental problem in their local community. They tackle the problem of erosion of banks and chemical run-off into a nearby lake, which is within walking distance of school.
Curated OER
Pulse: A Stomp Odyssey
Students examine how nonprofit organizations give back to the community. They role-play as members of a board from a philothropic organization. They develop a plan to bring arts back to the community for the benefit of the children.
Curated OER
Rearrange the Room
Second graders measure and grid their ideas for the new classroom floor plan. They create their own ideas for the classroom arrangement on grid paper. When they finish, they share their draft plan with their peers and with the teacher...
Curated OER
Code Breakers
Students collect data and make a frequency table, change ratios into percents, and analyze data to make predictions.
Curated OER
Texas Recycles Day: A Sample School-Wide Environmental Event
Students participate in a recycles day. They research how recycling benefits the environment. They also compete in a paper products recycling contest.
Curated OER
Negro Leagues Scrapbook
Students compile a scrapbook of photographs, quotations and notes, representing the perspective of a Negro Leagues baseball player. The scrapbook should include photographs with captions, letters, news headlines, and any other materials...
Curated OER
ESOL Maintaining Employment
Students discuss qualities of a good employee and view a Venn diagram that shows qualities of employee and employer. They review new vocabulary then role play teacher directed scenarios.
Curated OER
Biodiversity Debate
Ninth graders debate the positive aspects of dam construction. They discuss how a dam changes the ecosystem. In groups, 9th graders research and gather information for a debate. They state their position and write a report supporting it....
Curated OER
Folding Screen
Students describe a work of art and the function it served in viceregal Mexico. They explore how works of art from China came to Mexico during the viceregal period and influenced art produced in Mexico. They create their own screen based...
Curated OER
Einstein's Big Idea
Students create a time line of scientists involved with E = mc2. They describe experiments that led to an understanding of energy, mass, the speed of light squared, and the equivalence of mass and energy. Students relate challenges...
Curated OER
Math: Checking Scale Drawings for Accuracy
Students critique their own drawings for accuracy and make constructive suggestions prior to reworking them. They discover how scale in maps and drawing relate to relative size and distance. In addition, students comprehend the...
Curated OER
Floaters and Sinkers
Fifth graders define density as the amount of mass per volume a material contains, compare the densities of several types of materials, especially those that sink in water compared to those that float. They use two different methods to...
Curated OER
Shopping Trip 2- Coin Identification Worksheet
In this coin identification instructional activity, 1st graders cut out pictures of coins that are labeled with their value in cents. They place the coins next to the pictures and coin amounts.
Curated OER
My Top Interdisciplinary Social Studies Lesson Plans
Here are some top social studies lesson plans and activities which present concepts in a memorable fashion.
PBS
Pbs Learning Media: Teacher Leaders and Teacher Teams
Leadership preparation begins with early and meaningful opportunities for teachers to lead. The traditional span of control in schools with one principal supervising scores of teachers is outdated and no longer functional. Distributed...
TryEngineering
Ieee: Try Engineering: Build Your Own Robot Arm
Students design and build a working robotic arm from a set of everyday items with a goal of having the arm be able to pick up a Styrofoam cup. Working in teams of three or four students, the students explore effective teamwork skills...
North Central Regional Educational Laboratory
Ncrel: Building a Committed Team
Action steps that will build successful teams at the school level as well as implementation pitfalls and illustrative cases.
Read Works
Read Works: Making the Team
[Free Registration/Login Required] Students read a story about a boy named Andreas who is trying out for the basketball team. A question sheet is available to help students build skills in reading comprehension.
Free Reading
Free Reading: Rhyme Around Baseball Activity
An exciting version of baseball to build fluency in creating rhyming words. The classroom is divided into two teams; when one team is up to bat the first student is given a word family such as -at. They must create a rhyming word and...
Read Works
Read Works: Osceola's Last Stand
[Free Registration/Login Required] Students read about sports teams using Native American names. A question sheet is available to help students build skills in comparing and contrasting.
NASA
Nasa: Glenn Research Center: Teamwork in Aerospace Activity
Learn about the principles of aerospace engineering and the importance of teamwork by designing and building a paper airplane for a "fly-off" competition. Lesson plan includes introduction to team structure, activity directions, and...
AdLit
Ad lit.org: Classroom Strategies: Jigsaw
Jigsaw is a strategy that emphasizes cooperative learning by providing students an opportunity to actively help each other build comprehension. Use this technique to assign students to reading groups composed of varying skill levels....
AdLit
Ad lit.org: Professional Learning Communities
Professional learning communities (PLC) establish a schoolwide culture that develops teacher leadership explicitly focused on building and sustaining school improvement efforts. Generally, PLCs are composed of teachers, although...
PE Central
Pe Central: Ditto a Cooperative Game
In groups, students not only design and build something using equipment set for them but also write a detailed description of the item they have created so that others can follow their lead. This activity requires students to be...