Teach your learners about support, respect, and listening skills with an activity about empathy. Class members set goals for themselves regarding their peer relationships, and monitor their own progress over a period of time.

Binary graphing ... bit by bit. Pairs work together to develop a protocol in order to send the points of a graph. One partner sends the points and the other receives them and tries to recreate the graph. The pupils use the rubric to...

There are so many fascinating topics and concepts to learn about in the world. But where do you start? Begin formulating questions for an argumentative research paper with a guided practice lesson. After coming up with three questions...

Help learners find joy in facing mathematical challenges. The questions posed on this worksheet encourage young mathematicians to utilize skills learned throughout a geometry unit, and to apply themselves and persevere through...

There is often more to data than meets the eye. Scholars learn that they need to analyze data before making conclusions as they look at data that describes the number of candy bars boys and girls eat. They disprove a given conclusion and...

New to the socratic seminar format? Check out a resource that not only provides the rationale for the procedure and step-by-step directions, but also provides a list of suggested topics, rules and model statements.

How much astronomy can you study with the naked eye? Learn more about the ways scientists explore the galaxy with a short reading passage and set of short-answer questions.

With 52 task cards, learners will not run out of things to do with a book they are reading independently or with the class. Tasks include making a poster on a specific topic, writing a summary, drafting a sequel, creating a windsock,...

Encourage social skills including listening, speaking, and taking turns with a card game that challenges scholars to discuss topics and summarize in groups of four. 

Visible Thinking Routines are designed to help learners deepen their understanding of what they are learning and enable them to communicate their understanding of concepts to others. Individuals adopt one of these routines to use to...

How does chemistry help deep-sea explorers? Part four of a five-part series of lessons from aboard the Okeanos Explorer introduces middle school scientists to technologies used in ocean exploration. Groups work together to analyze data...

Study diffraction patterns using CDs and DVDs! Scholars measure the diffraction patterns of a light wave as it hits a CD or DVD. Using the information, they can measure the distance between the tracks. 

Young scientists explore hearing through multiple experiments, demonstrations, and activities. They focus on the changes in hearing over a lifetime, how we can determine where a sound is coming from, and the ability to filter noises.

Climbing Mount Everest is a dream for many mountaineers, and for a lucky few, it's a hard-fought accomplishment. Learn more about the important role Sherpas play in Mount Everest expeditions, including Sir Edmund Hillary's famous...

Learn more about the policy of the United States to contain communism during the Cold War. The fifth installment of an eight-part series looks at primary and secondary materials about a challenging time in history. After analyzing the...

Have you ever started a project only to realize you need to scrap it and start over? Scholars analyze the issues leading to the fall of the Articles of Confederation. A group investigation into Articles II, III, and VIII unveil the...

Contrary to popular belief, the monster's name in Mary Shelley's Frankenstein is not Frankenstein. A teacher's guide for the novel helps readers make sense of key details in the text, define vocabulary words, and discuss prominent...

From z-scores to probability. Learners put together the concepts from the previous lessons to determine the probability of a given range of outcomes. They make predictions and interpret them in the context of the problem.

Explore women's history through films and filmmaking. An innovative research project prompts class members to create their own screenplay about a figure in women's history. After outlining their characters, settings, and plots, young...

The Olympic Games are indeed a significant and far-reaching cultural component in our international community today, but from where do they originate? Where do our traditions stem from, and how do we choose the sports that constitute...

Read about the physical features of whales and how they are grouped according to their method of eating food. A neat activity is described on the page; consider carrying this out in class. The resource makes a nice addition to a lesson...

This is a fantastic resource designed for learners to envision what it was like for the three million African-Americans who migrated to urban industrial centers of the northern United States between 1910 and 1940. After reading a...

Understanding the vocabulary in a text, especially a text like Phineas Gage: A Gruesome but True Story About Brain Science that includes quite a few technical terms, can be the key to understanding the text as a whole. Learners focus on...

Gardeners are given an individual plant specimen from a bouquet of local rain garden plants. They group up by their plant type and then make observations together, name the plant, and introduce it to the rest of the class. You then share...