From the layers of Earth's spheres to latitude and longitude to looking at topographic maps, learners discover the elements of Earth's systems. 

Welcome to your new job as an astrophysicist, astrobiologist, engineer, or research scientist at NASA. Your job is to search for alien life in our solar system! Throughout a unit of activities, learners search the galaxy through...

No matter how you shuffle the elements, their electron configurations keep them in the same order. How can that be? Introduce the concept of periodicity through a lesson that combines inquiry, discussion, and comparison. Partners...

Gun control is one of the most hotly debated topics in the United States. Learners use a structured conversation to engage around this controversy. Using a scaffolded conversation that relies on a reading and analysis of arguments for...

Let a video light the way to a better understanding of solar energy. Scholars first learn vocabulary terms related to the photovoltaic effect, solar cells, and electricity. They then watch a video to learn why silicon is often used as a...

Young historians take an in-depth look at the five freedoms granted by the First Amendment. Groups apply their knowledge of the freedoms to a series of scenarios to decide if the depicted actions represent a violation of the amendment.

Mindful breathing or belly breathing is the basis for most mindfulness exercises. Introduce mindfulness practices with a short exercise in breath awareness designed to reduce stress and increase awareness.

An excellent lesson plan on the classic book, Where the Red Fern Grows. Learners view the W. Wilson Rawls website and engage in a series of activities generated by the website. They write in their reflective journals, watch a video, and...

To continue their study of the Civil War, Reconstruction, and the beginning of the civil rights movement, class members watch the YouTube video of Billie Holiday singing "Strange Fruit" as an introduction to an examination of...

Do not let the class just sit and rot. Pupils learn how decomposition and nutrient recycling is important to an ecosystem. Groups design an experiment to determine how environmental conditions affect decomposition. They develop a poster...

As part of a unit study of immigration, class members participate in a mock Immigration Court activity in which they argue four cases before an immigration judge.

Six pages begin with a detailed introduction to meiosis and homologous chromosome pairs. Instructions guide learners through a simulation in which they draw craft sticks marked with autosomes in order to decode the genes inherited by...

Who purloined the poodle? Class groups read police reports and theorize whodunnit. The sixth of a ten-lesson series on mysteries.

Shocking! After viewing a short clip from the 1931 movie, Frankenstein and reviewing electricity references in Mary Shelley's novel, class members examine Luigi Galvani's and Alessandro Volta's observations on electricity and muscle...

Middle schoolers break into groups and closely investigate primary sources associated with the seven different continents. After deciding which continent their primary sources relate to, representatives from each group present their...

After listening to a variety of interpretations of "When the Saints Go Marching In," partners compose and then perform their own renditions of this classic before joining a full-class jam session.

"Let the hunt begin!" As an introduction to synonyms, second graders generate a list of word pairs that have similar meanings. The words pairs are written on sentence strips, cut apart, shuffled, and distributed to class members who must...

Everyone living in the United States today is a descendant from an immigrant—even Native Americans. Learn about the tumultuous history of American immigration with a reading passage that discusses the ancient migration over the Bering...

You may not be able to take a field trip to the moon, but that doesn't mean your class can't study moon rocks. Using graham crackers as the moon's bedrock and powdered donuts as micrometeorites, young scientists simulate...

From start to finish, this is a truly excellent lesson plan addressing the epidemic of diet-related disease in the United States. Learners begin with a reading excerpt of detailed information on trends in the American diet and the...

Disguises and role playing are the focus of a resource that uses Shakespeare’s As You Like It, Twelfth Night, and Henry IV, Part I, to demonstrate how we all play many parts in our lives; how we all are “merely players.” The many...

Language arts learners don't need a lecture about poetry; they listen to poetry every day on the radio! Apply skills from literary analysis to famous songs and beautiful lyrics with a lesson about literary devices. As...

Once the class learns about the hero's journey, they'll find it in every story and movie they see! Take characters from their humble beginnings to their atonement and apotheosis with a set of lessons about the hero's journey...

Should identifying a tragic hero be based on a universal definition or a definition based on the morals and values of a specific culture? As part of a study of Things Fall Apart, class members read Sylvia Plath's "Colossus" and then...