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Loose Lips
Have your middle and high schoolers analyze instances of celebrities using racial slurs or making prejudiced comments in public. After reading an article, they consider the roots and effects of prejudice and bias. As a class, they...
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New York City Delights: The Taxi Cab
You set the rate! Step into the shoes of a taxi driver in New York City, and also pretend to be a person who uses taxis to get around town. The class will conduct collaborative research to learn about the history of taxis. Then, they...
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City, County, Community
Students explore issues and situations that make for a city and its local environments. In this local government lesson, students design maps, define issues and create brochures that illustrate their understandings of these concepts and...
Odyssey of the Mind
Odyssey of the Mind Curriculum Activity: Performing Arts
The classical arts have made a lasting impact on our society and your advanced learners get to find out why. The activity starts as the children create a list of the arts found in society, they discuss how these art forms impact their...
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Following the Leaders
Examine the historic election of Pope Benedict XVI and reflect on the challenges he faces as the new leader of the Catholic Church. This New York Times lesson investigates how other world leaders are chosen in different forms of...
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Hurricane Katrina: You Be the Reporter
Students work in a small group to create news stories, feature stories and editorials/letters to the editor and organize them in a podcast, video-based program, or newspaper/magazine focused on Hurricane Katrina.
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White Southerners' Defense of Slaveholding
High schoolers read transcriptions of articles from two historical Virginian newspapers and examine how white southerners defended the institution of slavery. They write a one-act play or a dialogue between an abolitionist and a...
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Navajo Code Talkers
Young scholars investigate the Navajo Code Talkers and their role in World War II. They complete a Webquest, explore various websites, encode a short message, analyze maps, answer discussion questions, and read newspaper articles about...
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Math! What's It All About?
Students explore math in their everyday lives. In this math lesson, students discuss how they use math in their everyday lives. Students work in groups to brainstorm how they use math everyday.
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Great Expectations: Group Writing
Examine the differences between totalitarianism and democracy in this writing instructional activity. Using the same format and theme from Great Expectations, young writers work in pairs to compose their own short stories. They follow...
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iPod Reporters
Students develop a topic for a class newspaper article and set up an interview with someone involved in the issue. They record the interview using an iPod with a voice recorder then use direct quotes for their article. As a whole...
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Peace Corps Challenge—Solving the Water Quality Issue
Learners create a Wanzuzu newspaper. In this Peace Corps lesson plan, students participate in a discussion regarding water pollution in Wanzuzu. Learners conduct further research about the issue and create newspapers that detail the...
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Ambassador Satch, Superb Entertainer: 1950-1971
Students participated in guided listening lessons of Louis Armstrong's jazz music while interpreting his lyrics. They study his life as an entertainer and goodwill ambassador for the US.
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Current Weather
A great year around activity that shows young mathematicians how the math skills they are learning are actually used in the real world. This exercise also helps learners begin to distinguish the difference between weather and climate. As...
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Yesterday and Today
Eighth graders are introduced to the concept of conservation. As a class, they brainstorm ways in which they can or already have helped the environment. Using the internet, they research key individuals and organizations that help the...
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Interviews with the American People "Days of Infamy"
Students compare and contrast statements made by people in "Man on the Streets." They are interviewing them on the current war in Iraq and how they felt on Sept. 11th. These interviews are tape recorded. To see what kinds of questions to...
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Who's Wild?
Students explore the differences between animals of the wild and domesticated animals. In this wild animals instructional activity, students understand that tame animals ancestors were once wild. Students illustrate the...
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Latinos Spice Up Melting Pot
Students investigate the history of early Hispanic workers in the U.S. They complete an online Webquest, explore various websites, read about Latinos in the U.S. today, view a mural, and answer discussion questions.
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In My Honest Opinion
Students explore the function of letters to the editor for both a newspaper and its readers. They select a current event about which he or she feels strongly, reads a related New York Times article and responds to it in a letter to the...
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Ethics in the Science Classroom: Recycling
Learners work in a group to create a skit of a scenario involving recycling. Student skits should encourage and convince the audience members to participate in recycling activities. Students provide written responses after the final...
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Profiles in Progress
Learners read an online article about the role of women in sports, particularly the Olympic games. They choose a female Olympian to research and write about.
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Johannes Gutenberg and the Printing Press
Students use library or online resources to create time lines on the life of Johannes Gutenberg and tell the impact his invention, the printing press, had on the development of newspapers.
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Cooperative Group Spelling Game
Partners or groups work together to practice the correct spelling of words. They speed-cut letters from print sources and arrange them into correctly spelled words from their lists. Newspapers are suggested, but magazines might result in...
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This Is America! Flag Collage
In a visual essay of their thoughts about "What America Means to Me," kids of any age can create a collage about their country. Originally intended to be created physically, learners could share their projects online by using an...