Museum of the Moving Image
Political Ads in Historical Context
Campaign ads target both timely issues and general themes. Presidential campaign ads from 1952 and 1988 provide class members an opportunity to compare how the topics ads choose to address can dramatically influence election outcomes.
PBS
Analyzing Stop and Frisk Through Personal Stories and Infographics
How much can you learn about an important topic from a single image? High schoolers analyze an infographic that represents the number of stops performed during the Stop and Frisk police procedure. After building background information...
Library of Congress
Industrial Revolution
Could you live without your phone? What about cars, steel, or clothing? Class groups collaborate to produce presentations that argue that either the telephone, the gramophone, the automobile, the textile industry, or the steel...
Carolina K-12
Making First Vote Your Vote: Designing a Schoolwide Election
Encourage pupils to design an election plan for the entire school. They participate in a Board of Elections, create polling rules, discuss election controversies, write questions about the issues, run the election through an online...
Council for Economic Education
Federal Budget Lesson Plan and Fiscal Ship Student Game
The federal budget has never been so fun! Using an interactive game, high schoolers choose from a variety of policy options after identifying goals and try to balance these changes in policy with a federal budget.
Council for Economic Education
Production Possibilities Curve
Demonstrate the important economic principles of the production possibilities curve, including how to calculate opportunity cost and graph curves by using a table or calculation. Learners use a variety of methods, including videos,...
Berkshire Museum
The Three Life-Giving Sisters: Plant Cultivation and Mohican Innovation
Children gain first-hand experience with Native American agriculture while investigating the life cycle of plants with this engaging experiment. Focusing on what the natives called the Three Sisters - corn, beans, and squash - young...
North Carolina State University
Construction
Engineering design projects serve as great opportunities for collaborative problem solving. In this case, students work in small groups designing, building, and eventually testing a structure that meets a teacher-specified objective. It...
Visa
The Tools to Build Your Financial Dream
When it comes to all the ways money management and financial responsibility weave into our daily lives as adults, make sure students are prepared to locate resources for managing their finances, such as a financial advisor.
Teaching Tolerance
Racial Profiling
Racial Profiling. Class members chart what they know and what they want to know about this hot-button topic.
Civil War
Civil War Medicine: Fact or Fiction
Young historians compare the presentation of medical care during the Civil War in passages from fictional and nonfictional texts. They examine passages from Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell and Soldier's...
Stanford University
Iraq Resolution
The 9/11 attacks propelled the United States into a period of low-grade war that has existed from that day all the way to current times. By looking at documents from the decision to send troops to Iraq in 2006, scholars connect the...
Curated OER
How to Teach Geography with KidPix II
Students use the computer program KidPix II to color a map of the world. In this world map lesson plan, students fill in different colors for different continents that are told to them on the program KidPix II.
Curated OER
Teaching about the First Amendment
Students defend the Constitution against a group of Senators who decide that all media must be approved by the government, all Americans must take a loyalty oath, join an official U.S. religion and subscribe to approved clubs.
Curated OER
How to Teach Geography with KidPix 1
Students create a compass rose. In this geography lesson, students create a compass rose using the computer program KidPix 1.
Curated OER
Social Studies: Cooking Methods - Past and Present
Fourth graders identify geographic regions (Texas' Edwards Plateau) and sequence steps in the hot rock cooking process. They compare and contrast prehistoric and contemporary cooking methods. Students conduct online research and record...
Curated OER
Is Modern Civilization Civilized?
Students examine the concept of civility. In this modern civilization instructional activity, students study Gandhi's teaching about the attributes of civilized societies and discuss how they can contribute to fostering civilization in...
Curated OER
Candid Cameras
Students read a New York Times article associated with the use of photography as a tool to depict social issues in order to provoke action. They create a Social Issues display.
Curated OER
Checkbook
Develop life skills through the use of an AppleWorks Banking kit, a spreadsheet program, and a role play activity. This life skills instructional activity utilizes technology plus busines and social studies principles. Note:...
Curated OER
The World Goes Bananas
Students comprehend the causes and effects of inequality and social injustice. They explore the effects of globalization and trade between countries. Students discuss the hidden social and environmental costs which often lie behind goods...
Curated OER
Statement of Principles
Students create their own work of art that serves as a social commentary. In this art statement lesson, students research how art conveyed moral and ethical ideals during the Neoclassical period and create a drawing that addresses a...
Curated OER
Introduction to Maps
Young scholars develop their map skills. In this geography lesson, students participate in an activity that requires them to survey their social studies book in order to find different types of maps and purposes for their uses.
Curated OER
Treaties
Students explore Canadian maps. In this map skills and Canadian history lesson plan, students locate reserves that originated from treaties made while establishing the Saskatchewan First Nation reserve communities. Students research...
Curated OER
We and Thee
Students examine class structure. In this diversity education lesson, students discuss stereotypes within their school as an introduction to Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet. After students have read the play and discussed social class...