National Endowment for the Humanities
Toni Morrison's Beloved: For Sixty Million and More
Complex, disturbing, and challenging, Beloved is the focus of a lesson that provides three activities to guide a close reading of Toni Morrison's novel. Readers create chapter titles based on key plot elements or themes, identify...
K20 LEARN
Analyzing The "I Have A Dream" Speech
The famous words of Martin Luther King still resonate with scholars today. An enlightening instructional activity helps pupils examine the "I Have a Dream" speech in more depth and learn what impact it had on the civil rights movement....
American Institute of Physics
The Physical Sciences at Women's Colleges
After a brief introduction to the history of women's colleges in the United States and a discussion of the resistance such institutions faced, young scientists investigate seven traditionally women's colleges and their physics programs....
DocsTeach
The Amendment Process: Ratifying the 19th Amendment
The process for adding an amendment to the U.S. Constitution is long and arduous, by design. High School historians study a series of documents about the Nineteenth Amendment and, using an interactive program, drag the documents onto a...
K20 LEARN
Cumbersome Cubes
Halving is not always so simple. Small groups build a cube and then determine how to construct a cube that is half the size. Groups create two cubes, one that is the correct size and another that would be an alternative solution. To...
National Woman's History Museum
How Do We Remember and Honor the Contributions of Women in Public Space?
Public art, especially monuments and memorials, are designed to celebrate and honor those who have made significant contributions to a community or even an entire nation. Here's a lesson that asks scholars to consider who is represented...
National Woman's History Museum
Shirley Chisholm, Unbossed and Unbought
An engaging resource introduces young historians to Shirley Chisholm, the woman, the Black congresswoman, the activist, and the candidate for President in 1972. Class members study primary sources, watch a video of her announcing her run...
American Institute of Physics
Women and the Manhattan Project
The Manhattan Project was a massive undertaking involving multiple sites and thousands of scientists and technicians. To gain an understanding of the women who participated in the project, groups select an oral history of a woman...
American Institute of Physics
The Tuskegee Weathermen: African-American Meteorologists during World War II
Chances are good that young scholars have heard of the Tuskegee Airmen but few would predict that these pilots had their own support in the form of the Tuskegee Weathermen. These Black meteorologists were recruited and trained to provide...
Newseum
Civil War: Encoding the News
Young journalists learn to appreciate the advantages of how modern media technology enables rapid news delivery as they compare today's media revolution to how the telegraph and Morse Code revolutionized news coverage during the Civil...
Academy of American Poets
Voice
Four lessons make up a poetry unit that introduces high schoolers to spoken and written poetry. Class members also examine poems as social commentary and connect these poems to various novels and plays. A great way to incorporate poetry...
American Institute of Physics
The Black Scientific Renaissance of the 1970s-90s: African American Scientists at Bell Laboratories
A two-part lesson asks young scientists to research the contributions of African American scientists at Bell Laboratories. After presenting their findings, class members watch two demonstrations that introduce them to total internal...
American Institute of Physics
African Americans and the Manhattan Project
A lesson plan about the Manhattan Project will explode young physicists' understanding of the racial attitudes in the United States during and after World war II. Groups select an African American scientist or technician that worked on...
Institut Obert de Catalunya
20th Century Music: Jazz
A 67-page packet provides instructors with a complete course in the history of Jazz. Lessons look at the roots of jazz in early 20th century African American communities in the southern United States and continues to the New Orleans...
Facebook
What Is Verification?
One of the most important skills news consumers and social media users must develop is the ability to determine the veracity of stories they read or view. Here's an interactive lesson plan that teaches high schoolers how to verify news...
Teach Engineering
Paper Towers and Pool Balls Design Challenge
Those who build together learn together. Scholars work in groups on two teamwork-building activities that involve engineering design. They first construct the tallest tower they can using five sheets of paper and masking tape. Next, they...
American Statistical Association
The Gumball Machine
Chew on an activity for probability. Given information on the number of gumballs in a gumball machine, scholars consider how likely it is to randomly draw a blue gumball and how many of each color they would draw in 10 trials if the...
American Statistical Association
The Mean and Variability from the Mean
Discover the mean from fair share to the balance point. The activity takes small groups of pupils through two different interpretations of the mean, the fair share understanding of the mean, and the balance point. Scholars use the...
British Council
Card Games
Oh, snap! Learners practice conversational English by learning the rules of the card game Snap. Then, they play the game in small groups before writing out instructions for another card game of their choosing.
British Council
Snack Facts - Recording Vocabulary
What's in a word? Scholars look at a sentence written on the board about snacks. They discuss unfamiliar terms and then record the new words by drawing a picture, writing a synonym, writing a translation, or creating a mind map. Pupils...
University of California
Tenochtitlán
Behold, the Great Aztec empire! Scholars use primary sources to understand the impact of the Aztec city Tenochtitlan. Academics complete a worksheet and participate in group discussion to understand how Tenochtitlan was a melting pot for...
University of California
Bread and Circuses: Rome as a Site of Encounter
An intriguing lesson uses 12 Roman artifacts to explain Roman society and politics. Young historians view images of artifacts and learn how each one represents an aspect of Roman society. Academics also complete a hands-on activity to...
Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library & Museum
Pearl Harbor Activity #3: Public Opinion Word Cloud
As part of a study of the December 7, 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor, young historians imagine the feelings of those who lived during the attack by creating a word cloud of 10 words they think express the emotions of people at that time....
PBS
Reading Adventure Pack: Gardening
A Reading Adventure Pack invites scholars to start gardening. Following a reading of two books—fiction and nonfiction—young green thumbs repurpose food containers to grow an herb garden in their kitchen, plant seeds in starter pots out...