Who says playing around in class is a bad idea? Precocious physicists engage in building mechanisms that include cams, gears, pulleys, and levers using an interactive lesson. After completing toy tutorials about each topic, users build a...

Set up your class to read Esperanza Rising, by Pam Muñoz Ryan, through a class read-aloud and exploration of the setting. The detailed instructional activity outlines each step. First, class members read over the first few pages and...

Make connections between Esperanza Rising and human rights with the activities outlined here. The instructional activity starts out with a brief quiz and review of the novel. After that, pupils circulate and share quote strips that you...

Third graders practice the skills of identifying the main message in a story, describing the main character, and sorting the key details of a story into specific categories. The story they read is, The Boy Who Loved Words. Using a...

How far would your pupils go to be able to have access to books? Revisit Heather Henson and David Small's That Book Woman and challenge class members to take on the role of Cal or the Book Woman. By putting themselves in someone else's...

Thank goodness we have calculators to compute logarithms. Pupils use calculators to create logarithmic tables to estimate values and use these tables to discover patterns (properties). The second half of the lesson has scholars use given...

Welcome to Frightful's Mountain. The teacher introduces scholars to the text Frightful’s Mountain by reading the first chapter aloud. Learners then talk with a partner about the text. The instructor models answering focus questions...

Learners follow along as the teacher reads Products of Mining in Canada: From Batteries to Vehicles aloud. They then discuss the meaning of key terms and determine the gist of the text. Pupils do a second read and complete a graphic...

Not only do extracurricular activities look good on a college application, they can foster important life skills. From sports to volunteering to employment, extracurricular activities can inform your learners' experiences...

Solving systems by substitution can be a challenging topic in algebra I. Here is a lesson that builds on students' understanding of intercepts to begin the process of substitution, and all work is reinforced graphically to build...

As Ken Jennings said, "There's just something hypnotic about maps." Certainly, the longer you look at them the more you can learn. In this project-based learning lesson, individuals study both historic and present-day maps of...

Which will make it fly better? Individuals build paper rockets with fins that are launched using straws. After determining an average flight distance, they make adjustments, such as size and location of fins, and try again. A second...

A simple tweak in the equation can mean big things for a quadratic graph. High school mathematicians look at the parent graph of a quadratic and incorporate three different changes to the function. The problems require explanations of...

Need some activities to go along with your unit? A collection of hands-on activities from PBS offers opportunities to add to your electricity, sound, and force units. The electricity activities revolve around building a...

What features mark a building as belonging to a particular culture, time, and place? Class members investigate the architectural movements represented in structures built in Forsyth County, North Carolina from 1880-1980 by examining...

Pronouns are the most helpful parts of speech! Model the ways that interrogative, indefinite, personal, and demonstrative pronouns can specify meaning and enhance writing with a hands-on activity.

Build a soccer field through a little mathematical analysis. Individuals manipulate the dimensions of a soccer field as they drag points to new positions. The simulation shows the corresponding intercepts and area. As pupils explore the...

Starting from a view of cells, a constructive simulation shows every step of building a new protein. It walks through transcription, translation, building amino acids, and folding the protein. Viewers control if it plays as a video or...

E is for economics, environment, and social equity. The fifth installment of a 15-part series has scholars first considering ecological impacts, such as determining how much water it takes to produce a can of soda. They then use decision...

Should bottled water be sold in schools, or should they only provide tap water? The summative unit in the six-part series encourages scholars debating this topic. The lessons teach how to build an argument, how to gain background...

Solar energy is an amazing alternative ... but, not always particularly portable! Challenge young scientists to a folding solar panel build-off with an easy-to-execute activity. Scholars brainstorm around specific design needs, construct...

How do you describe a jellyfish? Individuals write adjectives for Nomura's jellyfish, take notes, and check understanding with a formative assessment. Notes include the definition for adjectives, guiding questions to help writers...

One way to study the microscopic is to make it macroscopic. Each slide of the lesson presentation presents a different molecular model along with a brief description of the compound's function. Learners use the information to build...

Class members build a machine to demonstrate Lenz's law and help this scientific principle come to life. After building a ring fling machine, instructions for properly operating the machine and a few thought-provoking questions lead to...