Ancient World (pre-1300) Teacher Resources

Ancient texts, like Homer's Odyssey, mentions navigating ships by observing constellations. Pupils learn about the link between history and astronomy as they relate to navigation in the Bronze Age. Scholars complete two hands-on...

Your class can follow along with this PowerPoint to learn about all the triumphs and defeats that led to the rise and fall of the Roman Empire. Each slide contains key information related to Roman rule, law, religion, philosophy,...

The Medieval Islamicate World was truly a world of wonders! Clocks with gears, armillary spheres ... and robots that played music? Journey to ancient Baghdad, the center of science and math with the seventh video in a History of Science...

Who was Cleopatra? What does she have to do with history? Watch a video that has a trial-theme aspect that explores the rumors and facts about the powerful woman and her effect on history.

Biology, cosmology, philosophy ... Plato and Aristotle had theories about them all! How did these ancient scholars shape the science of today? The third video in the History of Science series compares and contrasts the ideas of the famed...

There were three seasons related to farming according to the ancient Egyptians. Kids learn about the first, second, and third farming season by reading informational text. By the end of the slide show, they'll know about the flood...

How did early scientists arrive at the notion that everything was made of atoms? Meet the Presocratics during the second installment in an engaging History of Science series. Viewers discover how these pioneers developed a model for...

Students read the story Ancient Ones about a forest that is connected to all the life around it. In this reading lesson plan, students also create a tall folding book about the forest.

Combine science and social studies with this collection of notes on ancient astronomy. Ideas propagated by early scientists influenced the way people viewed life and our place in the universe. Examine the philosophies of Aristotle,...

Study corrosion on bronze statues with a hands-on lesson. As pupils place a penny in water with salt, they observe the changes in the penny throughout a period of a week. They then analyze the pre-conservation and the post-conservation...

Almost every ancient culture observed the stars and saw pictures in the patterns. Studying stars allowed them to guide travelers, determine when to plant crops, when to harvest food, and the stories surrounding the images include some of...

Behind the closed doors of natural history museums lies a hidden world of scientific research and discovery that goes unseen for visitors. Follow along as this short video explores different scientific mysteries that have been solved...

Students investigate the mystery of Stonehenge. In this Stonehenge activity, students participate in a classroom activity that requires them to research information about Stonehenge as well as information regarding archeology and...

Sixth graders analyze the geographic, political, economic, religious, and social structures of the early civilizations of the Ancient Hebrews, and write an essay.

Imagine having to give up cell phones, computers, and TV? What would be lost? What gained? An examination of the Drokpa, a nomadic people who live in the grasslands of Tibet, provides class members an opportunity to consider how access...

Everyone living in the United States today is a descendant from an immigrant—even Native Americans. Learn about the tumultuous history of American immigration with a reading passage that discusses the ancient migration over the Bering...

Sometimes all you need is a quick reminder and a brief outline to help put information in order. Present your class with an outline of the major accomplishments, individuals, and culture that marked each of China's ten Dynasties. This is...

Ancient coral beds give scientists clues to past ocean temperatures in much the same way that tree rings indicate historical weather conditions. High school scientists examine coral oxygen isotope ratios and plot the data as a function...

Take your class of youngsters on a prehistoric adventure with this four-lesson series on dinosaurs. Accompanying the Meet the Dinosaurs books by Don Lessem, these lessons engage children in writing their own dinosaur books, making...

Most of this activity is spent working on the "Bathymetry Worksheet." It includes a graph of the changes in sea level over the past 150,000 years and a bathymetric map of changes in an imaginary coastline over time. Participants answer...

How is sea coral like a thermometer? Part three of a six-part series from NOAA describes how oceanographers can use coral growth to estimate water temperature over time. Life science pupils manipulate data to determine the age of corals...

How can we bend a fossil? Junior paleontologists explore the joint movements of extinct species in Brain Scoop's Fossils and Geology series. The narrator works with a paleontology curator to show the experiments performed on the...

Coal forms from the ancient remains of plants that were alive on Earth before the dinosaurs! Scholars use their t-charts from the previous lesson plan over resources and research to determine if their information is correct. Through...

Is it possible all current lineage trace back to one male and female? Mitochondria DNA suggest just that! A lesson with this interesting perspective on genetic heredity explains how all human DNA connects to a single male and female in...