Teaching Tolerance
Truth to Power: Writing Letters for Change
Can letter writing really create social change? Pupils create and mail formal letters addressing a specific organization to promote social change they wish to see. Class members reflect on the process and responses they received in small...
Teaching Tolerance
Puppet Show
It's a play, it's a story, it's a puppet show! A lively resource provides academics with a creative outlet to express their views on diversity and social justice. Scholars are responsible for writing, creating, and performing a puppet...
Teaching Tolerance
Poetry and Storytelling Café
Academics take turns as actors in an engaging poetry cafe. Elementary learners work in small groups to create original poems or stories addressing community issues and read their work in front of a live audience. Scholars also reflect...
Committee for Children
Learn to Identify What’s Bullying, What’s Joking, and How to Deal With It
A quick lesson takes a look at the differences between bullying and joking. Through whole-class discussion, scholars identify between the two behaviors and brainstorm actions to take to cease bullying behavior. Small groups share with...
Constitutional Rights Foundation
The Census in US History
The census has been a part of the American landscape since the Constitution was written; however, it does have a history of controversy. Class members use a guided reading and simulation activity on developing census questions to...
Teaching Tolerance
Photo Essay Exhibit
Let the pictures do the talking. Children tell their stories using provided guidelines for a photo essay exhibit. Discussion questions and checklist materials help pupils brainstorm and create photo essays to help inspire social change.
Yale University
inspireED Innovator's Guide
Educators and scholars come together to build a team of go-getters striving for positive change in their school and community. Become an insipreED team with this handy guide designed to get you started. Sixty pages outline the who, what,...
Teaching Tolerance
Spotlight on Change Agents
A thought-provoking resource guides learners as they interview agents of social change and share their findings. Scholars select an individual, create questions, conduct the interview, and create a profile of the person they selected....
Teaching Tolerance
Picture Books
Aspiring artists and budding writers combine their skills in an interactive lesson. Young scholars become authors when they create their own picture books focused on social justice. The resource guides learners through the writing and...
Thoughtful Learning
Using Perspective Shifting to Persuade Readers
One of the key competencies of social and emotional learning is social awareness and being able to see things from another's perspective. This ability to shift perspective is particularly important when crafting an argument to persuade...
Committee for Children
Five Activities to Help Bystanders to Bullying Know What to Do
Five activities covering ELA, social studies, and social and emotional learning offer bystanders tips and the courage to help individuals being bullied. Activities include writing an acrostic poem, creating a pamphlet, reading current...
The New York Times
Breathing With a Pinwheel
A pinwheel encourages deep breathing to calm one's body and recenter their thoughts. Scholars breathe into a personal pinwheel with different types of breathing patterns then answer a question about how they feel.Â
Committee for Children
Students Learn to Stop Rumors Before They Start
Two activities look at how rumors are spread and ways class members can stop them. The first activity brings forth an in-depth conversation about how reporters gather information to write articles and how students can implement the same...
University of California
Breathing Boards
Instill the importance of mindfulness with six breathing exercises. Scholars trace shapes using their fingers, following arrows that tell them when to breathe in and when to breathe out. Exercises increase by counts of breath in and out.
Committee for Children
Create a Positive Classroom Climate and Help Stop Bullying
Encourage kindness and respect with an activity that challenges scholars to create a poster that details three ways to exhibit the desired character traits.
Koshland Science Museum
Infectious Disease: Evolving Challenges to Human Health Middle School Virtual Field Trip
Is there one right way to control infectious diseases? Learners determine the facts each stakeholder must consider when making their recommendations for controlling a disease threatening their area. They take into account public health,...
National Academy of Sciences
Genetic Disease: Putting DNA to Work
Scientific knowledge of genetic information has grown quickly over the last decade. An interactive lesson has learners research the role of science and medicine in diagnosing and treating genetic disorders. They consider the job of the...
US Department of Commerce
Featured Activity: City Planning With Census Data
What's more important ... an ice cream store or a police station? How about a school or a hospital? Using a simulation game, pupils allot resources as the federal government would based on the census. Discussion questions round out the...
US Department of Commerce
The Census Questionnaire: Then and Now
As the United States has changed, so has the census! While required by the Constitution, the questions the government asks to allot representation and federal funding has developed over time. Using images of previous censuses, young...
US Department of Commerce
The Opportunity Atlas
The American dream is to climb the social and economic ladder, but is it really possible? Using an online opportunity atlas, class members explore income and social mobility throughout the country. Discussion prompts allow learners to...
US Department of Commerce
Immigration Nation
People come and people go. Given tabular census data on the annual number of immigrants from four different regions of the world between 2000 and 2010, pupils create double bar graphs and line graphs from the data. They analyze their...
US Department of Commerce
The New Normal
Don't be normal ... be exceptional in understanding statistics. Pupils analyze six different sets of census data using histograms or normal probability plots to determine whether each data set fits a normal distribution. They then get...
US Department of Commerce
Educational Attainment and Marriage Age - Testing a Correlation Coefficient's Significance
Do women with college degrees get married later? Using a provided scatter plot of the percentage of women who earn bachelor's degrees and the median age at which women first get married over time, pupils conduct a linear regression...
US Department of Commerce
Exploring Sampling Variability - Higher Education Attainment Across The United States
More education in statistics is always beneficial. Given cards that provide the proportion of adults with bachelor's degrees in 10 random US states, scholars individually determine the sample percentage of states in which more than 30...