Build a bridge to learning in a STEM-aligned unit about urban infrastructure. Young engineers explore the many aspects of civil planning and design in a five-day unit. Content includes the challenging aspects of balancing building with...

Investigate the growth and development of New York City with the final lesson in this four-part series on skyscrapers. Learners first explore the concept of urban growth by looking closely at a series of three paintings made of Wall...

Jazz and the City, Jazz and the Civil Rights Movement, Jazz and Gender, Jazz and Literature, Jazz and the Arts, Jazz and Film. Here's a packet of unit plans organized around themes that reflect American culture. Each unit examines how...

Besides serving as awe-inspiring monuments of human achievement, skyscrapers are built to perform a wide range of functions in urban communities. The second lesson plan in this series begins by exploring the history of the Empire State...

Traffic is a very real concern for any Urban dweller. After watching a video showing various traffic issues and solutions, learners group up to discuss and develop innovative traffic solutions of their own. They explore vocabulary and...

This 3-day immigration study draws on historical trends and current events. A worksheet accompanies initial research on one group's U.S. immigration history, giving opportunity for collaborative learning through sharing findings. Groups...

While cities had only a small fraction of the population in colonial America, they played a significant role in pre-revolutionary years, and this was certainly true for the largest city in the North American colonies: Philadelphia. Your...

Can a sidewalk increase the amount of pollution in local streams? Scholars learn the answer to this question though research and experimentation in the fifth unit in the six-part series. Pupils study runoff, impervious surfaces, and the...

If you teach a man to fish, he will never go hungry—or he will overfish and permanently damage the ecosystem? Address the traditional biomes as well as the human-included ecosystems and contrasts the biotic and abiotic factors in each....

The construction of skyscrapers is no simple undertaking, involving the careful coordination and planning of many different people. The third activity in this series explores this detailed process by first teaching children about the...

Teach young environmentalists to protect their planet's resources with a set of interactive experiments. Kindergartners and other youngsters learn about watersheds and the water cycle, while older elementary learners focus on fertilizer...

The link to Ideas for Resources: Geology Manual is no longer valid, but the link to How to Teach Using Role-Playing does. Choose a realistic problem related to your focus topic, assign roles, and send your geology learners off to...

Could you live without your phone? What about cars, steel, or clothing? Class groups collaborate to produce presentations that argue that either the telephone, the gramophone, the automobile, the textile industry, or the steel...

Wes Magee's poem "The Chimney Boy's Story" about chimney sweeps/climbing boys is used as an introduction to a lesson that asks groups to research child labor in Victorian Britain.