Smithsonian Institution
Ceramica de los Ancestros
Scholars join a field expedition team to unearth a plethora of treasures from Central America. Artifacts listed in alphabetical order come with an informational blurb and a picture designed for participants to color. Activity pages...
American Museum of Natural History
What's This?: Early Humans
Early humans crafted shelters out of whatever materials they could find. A one-question quiz asks learners to identify the type of bones used to construct the hut pictured in a display.
Curated OER
How Size Shapes Animals
Students investigate how size affects large and small animals differently. In this animal lesson plan, students determine how size affects different animals by constructing their own animal out of marshmallows. Once students create...
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Archaeology What Gets Preserved?
Students view a video on a culture and list what would be preserved over time. In this investigative lesson students study preservation and what gets preserved in different cultures.
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Animal Encounters
Students use their visualizing and interpreting skills to produce original writings and artwork.
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What Can We Learn From Bones?
Students discuss what type of information they can gather from bones. In groups, they travel between stations in which they can view photos and listen to actual accounts of finding bones. They focus on the tools available to Native...
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Archeology: Weapons of the Texanos
Students develop archaeological context skills through a simulation which places them in the year 2500. After listening to the teacher read, "Weapons of the Texanos," they record what they think the weapon is. Next, in groups, they...
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UMNH: Cultural Clutter - Tales In The Trash
Fourth graders list three or more types of evidence of prehistoric cultures that encouraged archaeologists to investigate the marshes around the Great Salt Lake. They also explain why it is important not to disturb archaeological remains.
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Ancient Recipes
Students explore how foods and their preparation differ over time and from culture to culture. An ancient recipe for the preparation of goat, found by archaeologists, is examined and discussed by the students.
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Inventions over Time
Sixth graders examine inventions, such as spear points and bows and arrows, and discuss their importance in human cultural development. They compare these early inventions with modern ones and determine the impact of science and...
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Baga Drum
Students examine a Baga Drum in order to explore the history of the Baga people of West Africa. In this art history lesson, students recognize figures used in Baga Drum design that represent aspects of Baga culture. They also design and...
American Museum of Natural History
Being a Zoologist: Sandra Olsen
Are your students wild about horses? Then introduce them Sandra Olsen, a zooarchaeologist, who has been studying horses and the people who herd them. Ms Olsen responds to 15 interview questions and details how she goes about her...
Reading Through History
Early History and Exploration Unit
We all know about Christopher Columbus, but who else explored the Americas, and specifically, the future United States of America? Learners find out these answers and more in a resource that includes four different reading sections,...
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It's All in the Rocks
Students think critically to determine fact or inference when examining sedimentary layers with embedded fossils. They are being introduced to geology as well as evolutionary biology.
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Effigy Mound Activity
Young scholars research effigy mounds of Native people in Wisconsin. They create large models of effigy mounds in a given area based on factual information from their studies and research.
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Making Prehistory
Students create mock fossil records based on current scientific theories about prehistory. By learning about what fossil records teach us about different prehistoric time periods, students gain a greater understanding of theories of...
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Taming the Wild Aurochs
Sixth graders read and discuss the domestication of animals in history. In this Aurochs reading lesson, 6th graders define vocabulary and list similarities and differences between wild and domesticated animals. Students complete an...
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Plants and Animals: Partners in Pollination
Students describe the complementary relationships between pollinators and the plants they pollinate, identify adaptations that flowers have developed to "encourage" pollination, and create and draw their own "designer" flowers.
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How To Find a Site
Fourth graders identify the three basic needs of humans. They identify on a map the best places to live and make a list of items that they can find on a map - streams, river, hills, plains, forests, etc.
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Prehistoric Indians
Fourth graders identify the four Native American groups of Wisconsin. They compare the four groups through discussion and list the four groups with their tools, food, shelter, and time period.
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Going...going...gone? Tropical Rainforests-How They Work, What They Do for Us, What's Being Done to Them...
Sixth graders explore the Tropical Rainforest and come to understand what it is and how it affects the ecosystem. In this rainforests lesson, 6th graders write about the Tropical Rainforest, imagine they are in the Tropical Rainforest,...
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Pleistocene Mammals
Young scholars research the causes of the extinction of Pleistocene mammals. For this Pleistocene mammals lesson, students read essays to understand the Pleistocene epoch. Young scholars write an essay about the personal impact of this...
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Ice Age Animals
Students research the ice age and the animals that were on the Earth at that time and have a debate on the explanation for the extinction of the ice age animals.
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Minerals, Crystals, and Gems
Young scholars discover the relationships between minerals, crystals and gems. They bring in rocks that they find at home, in the schoolyard, etc. and examine them and attempt to identify them. They set up a classroom exhibit that...