US Environmental Protection Agency
A Mock Town Meeting on a Proposed Tank Farm
Intended as a follow up to the Protecting Your Drinking Water activity, young environmentalists use their assessment of the a hypothetical town's water supply to debate the installation of underground chemical storage tanks. With...
Ready Houston
Make a Plan
Youngsters are introduced to the concept of an emergency, develop plans and kits for addressing those emergencies, identify community helpers, and practice their phone number and address in this five-lesson mini-unit.
Curated OER
Take a Walk in Their Shoes: Great Leaders of Our Time
Research the characteristics of leaders who have used nonviolence to change society. The class then applies this information to their own community to find leaders with these same characteristics, creating a wall collage of pictures and...
Curated OER
Debt: Who Does it Affect?
Debt is a topic that affects everybody: the community, the nation, and the entire globe. Kids take charge of debt by designing a project that informs those in their community about good financial choices, keeps personal debt low, and...
Curated OER
Navigating The Road to my Future
Some kids think that making a plan for the future is a cinch! Let them discover through peer work and discussion that the road through life isn't always an easy one. The activities and worksheets in this lesson provide them with an...
Teach Engineering
Engineers Love Pizza, Too!
Help overcome challenges in eating pizza. Scholars work in groups to design a device that assists a physically handicapped person eat pizza. They build a prototype of such a device to test their designs before building. To...
Curated OER
Home Living / Daily Living: Personal Hygiene—Use of Napkin
Staying clean is a big part of staying healthy and looking good in the community. Personal hygiene and napkin use are the focus of this activity. Your class will eat a messy food, look in a mirror to see if their face is messy, then...
Curated OER
The Water We Drink
Third graders relate that the quality of their drinking water is subject to the condition of the environment and water found in streams and creeks in their community. They track the travel of a wad of paper from a student's desk to a...
Curated OER
Elementary School Health and Wellness Fair
This is a nice idea for high school students to organize and present a Health and Wellness Fair at a local elementary school. It looks like it would take a lot of organization, but would certainly build community relationships. There are...
Curated OER
You and the Military
Do military recruiters plan to visit your campus? If so, the visit presents an opportunity for class members to engage in a series of action projects. Class members interview recruiters, propose a PTA meeting to discuss the pros and cons...
NET Foundation for Television
1850-1874 Notable Nebraskan: J. Sterling Morton
What are the characteristics of an outstanding citizen? Nebraskan J. Sterling Morton contributed to the formation of societal and family values in his state. Learners gather information on Morton's life accomplishments from primary...
Curated OER
Demonstrating Our Rights
Students view image of Bridgeport Community Protest, discuss event depicted in image, and demonstrate knowledge of protest by organizing and carrying out an actual protest or demonstration.
Curated OER
Imagine That!
Enter the fantastical world of "Dungeons and Dragons" and other role-playing games with this lesson from The New York Times. Middle schoolers create the outline for a role-playing game based on their own community. Then, they...
Curated OER
Modals: Passive Voice
Encourage verb tense awareness by focusing on the passive voice. It could be used with a variety of learners, however, a few of the questions should be modified for younger children. By completing this twenty-six question activity,...
Curated OER
Poetry As Oral Performance
Reciting poetry is a great way to build oral language skills and build classroom community. Pupils look at the text elements of poetry and choose a poem to read aloud. They focus on rhythm, fluency, and expression. This is a great way to...
Curated OER
The Math in the Design and Building of Bridges
Research various types of bridge designs. Your class will be asked to consider what it would be like without bridges while learning about how they work. They will construct a model bridge based on given parameters. They then calculate...
Curated OER
Promote Nonviolence
Take a look at the topic of violence as seen in Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird. Discuss together the values that Atticus holds and brainstorm ways to combat violence in a similar manner to what he portrays in the novel. Get your...
Learning to Give
Five Thousand Dollars!
How does consumerism affect global poverty? Upper graders find out about cost benefit, wants and needs, and making good consumer choices as they explore this global topic. They role-play an impulse spending experience and work through...
Curated OER
Who is the Expert? Exploring Credible Sources in Healthcare
How do you decide what sources are credible when researching online? Evaluate sources with a focus on researching health issues. After brainstorming common health concerns and how they would try to diagnose these problems, class members...
Curated Video
Privacy Part 2
Why is online privacy so important? Explore privacy with a group assignment for which pupils create word clouds with words they associate with privacy. A discussion and online activity follow. Learners will read articles, explore the...
Curated Video
Detecting Lies & Harmful Links
Who and what can you trust online? How do you know? After viewing a pair of introductory videos on positive and safe online conduct, learners discuss the content and put it into practice during an online search activity about alien...
Curated Video
What Makes YouTube Unique
Start off a unit on YouTube with an introduction to the service and all that it offers. Learners watch various video clips before participating in a brief discussion about YouTube. The plan includes an activity based around...
New York City Department of Education
Colonial America and The American Revolution
How did the founding of the American colonies lead to a revolution? Use the essential question and sample activities to guide learners through a series of history lessons. Additionally, the packet includes effective strategies to...
Chicago Botanic Garden
Leaf Litter Ecology Lab
Some organisms spend their entire lives in leaf litter. The third in a series of six is a great instructional activity exploring the community of leaf litter. Groups gather and then spread leaf litter over white paper and remove...