Howard Hughes Medical Institute
The Making of the Fittest: Natural Selection and Adaptation
The pocket mouse can be light brown like the sands of the desert, or dark brown like the volcanic lava flows that are interspersed throughout New Mexico's Valley of Fire. It seems that predators have weeded out light colored mice in this...
Howard Hughes Medical Institute
Classroom Activities: Stem Cells and Diabetes
A multi-faceted instructional activity immerses AP biologists into the world of the stem cell. Using PowerPoint presentations, you introduce your class to diabetes and the possibility of finding cures through stem cell research. Online...
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)
How Much Water Do You Use?
Incorporate reading strategies, math, research, and the scientific method into one lesson about water conservation. After reading a story about a landlady trying to determine how many people are living in an apartment, learners develop a...
Curated OER
Tests and Technology: The Tools Your Students Will Need
Tips for teachers and students as they navigate the new world of computer-based standardized assessments.
Curated OER
Producing Beats
Turn your classroom into a music studio as groups work together to determine why music sounds different when performed live versus a recording. After listening to some different music, each group picks a poem, creates a recording, and...
Curated OER
Frequent Assessments Guide Teaching: Part One
What assessment strategies work best for you? I use multiple checks for understanding to make sure my kids are building knowledge, not reinforcing mistakes.
Curated OER
Review with Creative Writing
Connect a wide range of literature concepts where writers demonstrate mastery through creative writing.
Yale University
What Lies Beneath: A Strategy for Introducing Literary Symbolism
“It’s not about what it is, it’s about what it can become.” You’re never too old for Dr. Seuss and using The Sneetches and The Lorax is a great way to introduce readers to allegories, parables, and literary symbolism. The lessons...
National Endowment for the Humanities
John Steinbeck’s "The Grapes of Wrath": The Inner Chapters
Here’s a must-have resource for anyone using The Grapes of Wrath. Everything from guiding questions to background information, from photographs to documentary films, from activities to assessments is included in a richly detailed packet...
Curated OER
Create a Community that Promotes Academic Language
Set your elementary, middle, and high schoolers up for success by implementing a variety of strategies to build academic language.
National Endowment for the Humanities
Courage “In the Time of the Butterflies”: A Common Core Exemplar
The courage of Las Mariposas, the Mirabal sisters, is the focus of a series of activities designed to accompany a reading of In the Time of the Butterflies that ask readers to consider what it means to be courageous. Beautifully crafted...
Curated OER
The Five W's of Tax Day
Use April 15th to teach your students the fundamentals of the American federal tax system.
Teacher Stream
Mastering Online Discussion Board Facilitation
Build a class community, allow time for in-depth reflection and research, and facilitate the learning and writing process with online discussion boards! A resource delves into the benefits and purposes of discussion boards, as well as...
Khan Academy
Project: Make it Rain
Make it rain on your computer screen with this challenging JavaScript programming project. Modify the existing code of one little drop to create a downpour by using arrays and properties of arrays. But why stop there? How about some...
Khan Academy
Project: Build-a-House
Start with a basic house created in JavaScript code and practice programming with loops as you add rows of windows, grass, flowers, or trees. How about some apples growing in the trees? You get the idea. Your coding students can let...
US National Library of Medicine
Frankenstein: Penetrating the Secrets of Nature
Just because you can, should you? Reflections on the ethics and limits of medical research are prompted by a reading of excerpts of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, viewing of clips from the 1931 film, and examining sections of the online...
Curated OER
10 Tips for Keeping All Readers Accountable
Keep middle and high school readers accountable and push all students toward success by showing interest in their reading and testing the strategies below.
Curated OER
Plagiarism Workshop
What do George Harrison, Vanilla Ice, and Steven Ambrose all have in common? The Warner Brothers’ films Batman Forever and The Devil’s Advocate? All are guilty of plagiarism. And if you are considering a research project and want to...
Curated OER
Stock Wars: Bringing Wall Street to your Classroom
Using interactive apps and structured assignments, you can make the stock market accessible to all students.
Curated OER
Adding Humor to Your Lessons is No Laughing Matter
Try these seven ways to inject laughs into your curriculum, while staying on track academically.
Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers
Get Connected with Ohm's Law
Ideal for your electricity unit, especially with middle schoolers, this lesson plan gets engineers using multimeters in electrical circuits to explore the relationships among voltage, current, and resistance. Older learners may even plot...
Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers
Ship the Chip
Here is a tasty challenge, especially for middle school engineers: design a container that meets mass and volume criteria, and will safely transport a tortilla or potato chip through the mail without damaging it! Mostly, this is a crisp...
Clark County School District
Hollywood's Take on the Cuban Missile Crisis: Thirteen Days
Watching the film Thirteen Days is an engaging way of acquainting learners with the Cuban missile crisis, and this activity is the perfect accompaniment for viewership! It includes 15 questions for your young historians to consider and...
University of California
Roots of the Cold War
When and how did the Cold War begin? To answer this question, you will not find a better-organized, in-depth, activity- and inquiry-based resource than this! Executing best teaching practices throughout, each portion of this inquiry...