Serendip
Understanding and Predicting Changes in Population Size – Exponential and Logistic Population Growth Models vs. Complex Reality
Salmonella poisoning impacts over 200,000 people in the United States each year. Scholars learn about the growth of these bacteria using multiple approaches. Then they apply the same growth calculations to endangered species and think...
NOAA
Investigating Sea Level Using Real Data
The news reports on rising sea level, but how do scientists measure this rise? Scholars use NOAA data including maps, apps, and images to work through five levels of activities related to sea level. Each level in the series adds a new...
Princeton University
A Teacher's Guide to the Universe
Astronomers only observe four percent of the universe as the rest hides in darkness. The size, shape, and movement of the universe are the focus for an long-term high school unit. Its 43 lessons include hands-on experiments, direct...
Meadows Center for Preventing Educational Risk, University of Texas at Austin
Sight Word Fluency Lists 1 to 15
According to studies, sight words make up more than 75 percent of the words in children's beginning reading texts. Readers practice sight word recognition and fluency using 15 lists of words. Educators and scholars track the number of...
Soft Schools
Civil Rights
Informational text about the Civil Rights Movement challenges young historians to prove their reading comprehension skills with six multiple choice questions. After answers are submitted a new screen displays a score, answers—correct and...
Education World
Remembering Jackie Robinson
A four-paragraph informational text details the life of the famous baseball player, Jackie Robinson. A prompt challenges scholars to write or discuss a time in their life when they were not included and how that made them feel.
National Park Service
The Young Naturalist
Beginning with a brief history of our 26th president, Theodore Roosevelt, then followed by a discussion of his interest in nature, young scientists take to the outdoors to locate and observe local plants and insects. Scholars return to...
Look! We're Learning!
Ella Fitzgerald Biography Mini-Unit
Before there was Beyonce, before there was Madonna, before there was Cher, there was Ella. Introduce Ella Fitzgerald, The First Lady of Jazz, with a reading comprehension exercise that presents a brief biography of her life and then asks...
Council for Economic Education
What's the Big Deal about Spices?
Today's gourmands don't consider spices to be the equivalent of silver and gold. During the middle ages, however, these commodities were precious. People back then used spices in religious ceremonies, to cure rotten food, and as a show...
Council for Economic Education
Fall of Rome
What led to the fall of Rome? Scholars have debated the question since the end of the great empire. Young historians consider the same question through an economic lens using an engaging lesson that involves a hands-on evaluation of the...
Council for Economic Education
The Silk Road
The Silk Road connected the European, Middle Eastern, and Asian worlds. It also helped create the modern trade world. An analysis activity makes the importance of this Chinese innovation clear by asking participants to evaluate trades...
CCSS Math Activities
Smarter Balanced Sample Items: 8th Grade Math – Claim 4
A math model is a good model. A slide show presents 10 sample items on modeling and data analysis. Items from Smarter Balanced illustrate different ways that Claim 4 may be assessed on the 8th grade math assessment. The presentation is...
CCSS Math Activities
Smarter Balanced Sample Items: 8th Grade Math – Claim 3
Communication is the key. A dozen sample items require scholars to communicate their reasoning involved in arriving at a solution. The PowerPoint from the Gr. 8 Claim 2 - 4 Item Slide Shows series uses a variety of content to illicit...
CCSS Math Activities
Smarter Balanced Sample Items: 8th Grade Math – Claim 2
Math can be a problem in eighth grade. Sample items show how problem solving exists within the eighth grade standards. Part of the Gr. 8 Claim 2 - 4 Item Slide Shows series, the presentation contains eight items to illustrate the...
CCSS Math Activities
Smarter Balanced Sample Items: 8th Grade Math – Target J
Look at patterns in bivariate data. Eight sample items illustrate the eighth grade statistics and probability standards. The Smarter Balanced Sample multiple-choice items focus on numerical and categorical bivariate data. The slide show...
CCSS Math Activities
Smarter Balanced Sample Items: 8th Grade Math – Target I
A slideshow covering the Smarter Balanced Target I on solving problems involving volume of cylinders, cones, and spheres contains five sample items. Items range from finding the volume of a figure to finding the altitude of a cone given...
CCSS Math Activities
Smarter Balanced Sample Items: 8th Grade Math – Target H
Pythagoras is all about being right. A presentation provides sample items for how the Pythagorean Theorem standards may show up in Smarter Balanced assessments. Seven items use the Pythagorean Theorem to find the sides of a right...
CCSS Math Activities
Smarter Balanced Sample Items: 8th Grade Math – Target G
Transform the thinking of transformations with six sample items that illustrate the first four standards in the eighth grade geometry domain. Items use the coordinate plane to transform figures and analyze the relationship of the figures...
CCSS Math Activities
Smarter Balanced Sample Items: 8th Grade Math – Target F
Functions model relationships between quantities. The Smarter Balanced sample items demonstrate the assessment strategies for eighth grade function modeling standards. Items range from constructing linear functions from a table and a...
CCSS Math Activities
Smarter Balanced Sample Items: 8th Grade Math – Target E
One of several presentations of eighth grade sample items looks at the basics of functions. Smarter Balanced sample items for Target E highlights the way function content shows up on the assessments. The presentation contains eight items...
CCSS Math Activities
Smarter Balanced Sample Items: 8th Grade Math – Target D
Can learners determine solutions associated with lines? A slide presentation contains sample items for the Smarter Balanced 8th grade math Target D covering solving linear equations and systems of linear equations. Items illustrate the...
CCSS Math Activities
Smarter Balanced Sample Items: 8th Grade Math – Target B
Develop a radical approach to covering the Smarter Balanced targets for 8th grade math with a presentation that helps further develop math skills. Seven sample items demonstrate the expectation for working with integer exponents,...
CCSS Math Activities
Smarter Balanced Sample Items: 8th Grade Math – Target A
Take an irrational approach to numbers with a Smarter Balanced assessment that covers the introduction of irrational numbers. The nine items cover identifying irrational numbers, approximating them with rational numbers, and converting...
CCSS Math Activities
Smarter Balanced Sample Items: High School Math – Claim 4
What is the appropriate model? Sample problems show the extent of the Smarter Balanced assessments Claim 4, Modeling and Data Analysis. Items provide pupils the opportunity to use mathematical modeling to arrive at a reasonable answer....