David Binnington's mural commemorating the 1936 Battle of Cable Street is the focus of a lesson that looks at public art as a form of civic participation. After reading background material about the mural, individuals analyze a segment...

Are Civil War monuments a kind remembrance or a reminder of a dark past? The lesson focuses on the public's memory of the Civil War and the monuments that represent it. Young academics explore past efforts to change historical symbols...

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....

Through a careful reading and examination of Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin, scholars take part in grand conversations about the novel's contents, slavery, and the impact the book had on it. Furthermore,...

Middle schoolers review library skills by rotating through teacher-created learning stations covering various topics. They discuss plagiarism, work on Almanac practice as a team, complete practice using indexes, and an abstracts handout...

Campaign propaganda has evolved from 1952 through the presidential election of 2008. A social studies activity prompts class members to analyze the devices used in ads and political cartoons, noting strategies they believe would work to...

I Have A Dream ... that after the lesson, all individuals master the reading, writing, researching, listening, and speaking skills the biography project helps them develop. Martin Luther King, Jr. serves as a topic example for a model...

Students widen their understanding of the different points of view surrounding current news topics. They research a current controversy on which public opinion is divided and write a concise commentary on the topic expressing a strong...

How did the Emancipation Proclamation lead to the Thirteenth Amendment? Middle schoolers analyze primary source documents including the text of the Emancipation Proclamation, political cartoons, photographs, and prints to understand...

In a comprehensive role playing activity, teens play the parts of different stakeholders in the realm of acidic oceans. They research, debate, and create a presentation from the perspective of either ocean organisms, the fishing...

“It was a miracle.” Basil Heatter’s “The Long Night of the Little Boats,” which details the miraculous rescue of the British army from the shores of Dunkirk in 1940, is featured in a series of exercises that ask class members to read,...

What is a good citizen? Here is a fantastic unit of ten lessons that will thoroughly cover the concept of civics and citizenship in your class. Examples of activities include learning stations, primary and secondary source analysis of...

Perfect for both classroom and homeschool settings, this 72-page resource packet, designed for C.S. Lewis's The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe, is a must-have for your curriculum library. Chapter-by-chapter vocabulary lists and...

As an introduction to the skills required for and responsibilities of driving, pre-teens and teens engage in a series of activities, chart their response times, and analyze how variables effect these reaction times. Class...

Thinking of assigning a research paper? Get writers off on the right foot with a lesson that introduces the BEAM research model. Writers brainstorm the background of their topic, explicate the aspects of their topic, consider the...

Who keeps animals safe? Who keeps us safe? Discover the helpers that make learning and growing possible through a medley of activities that focus on habitats—ours and those in the rainforest. Scholars are asked to identify one...

Fair use, intellectual property, public domain ... what does it all mean? Scholars act as judges to determine if different scenarios constitute fair use. They also advance their research skills by practicing paraphrasing and citing...

A unit study of the importance of a free press in a democracy begins with class members listening to a podcast featuring two journalists, one from a United States public radio station and one from Capetown, South Africa. The lesson,...

Radical Reconstruction, the 10-year period referred to after Congress passed the Reconstruction Act of 1867, saw the establishment of manhood suffrage, men voting without any racial qualifications. Southern states also rewrote their...

From the time of its publication, Uncle Tom's Cabin has been controversial. To better understand the debate, class members first examine a broadside decrying the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, and then two newspaper reviews of the...

Here's a great resource for your curriculum library. The 240-page packet, organized into units by topics, includes sample lesson plans, links to primary and secondary source documents, worksheets, activities, and sample assessments.

Using methods adopted by Public Policy Analysts (PPA) class groups define a social problem, gather evidence to document the existence of the problem, identify causes, evaluate existing policies designed to deal with the problem, develop...

In a comprehensive project, teen ecologists read case studies to learn about successful conservation programs, then work together to research an ecosystem. The project culminates with either an in-class presentation about a conservation...

Though Upton Sinclair's novel The Jungle shocked the American public into a thorough examination of the meat-packing industry, the author was disappointed that his book's main argument—the exploitation of American immigrants—was not...