Four lessons, performed over four weeks, pay special attention to Abigail Adams. Fifth graders analyze primary and secondary sources, read texts, discuss and write about Adams' experience during the Revolutionary War—the Battle of Bunker...

3D printers, selfie sticks, smart watches. GPS, self-driving cars, YouTube. Imagine life without inventions. Believe it or not, these items were all invented in the last 10 years. Inventions, and the inventors responsible for them,...

Take a closer look. Young academics become detectives in an engaging lesson plan on the American Revolution. Scholars work in groups to analyze documents to uncover whether the American colonists or British soldiers fired the first shot...

Scholars work in pairs to decide whether leaders wrote the Declaration of Independence for the rich and powerful or for every man. To draw their conclusion, pairs read excerpts from two historians and complete a graphic organizer...

Students investigate the broad range of jobs that can be found in the world of design. Students explore sound design, language architecture, etc. Students design a resource book and post it on a website for others to share.

Readers learn how to choose specific details drawn from a primary source (Steve Jobs' 2005 Stanford University commencement address) to support an analysis of informative text.

How does additional daylight hours affect people and nature? With the help from the legend Maui and the Sun and a grand conversation, scholars complete a graphic organizer to distinguish between the positive and...

Why did the United States choose to invade Cuba in 1898? As part of a 3-day lesson, your young historians will first develop working hypotheses to answer this question, then work with a variety of historical primary source documents that...

After analyzing newspaper articles portraying different perspectives of the explosion of the Battleship USS Maine, your young historians will take a stand on which position is the most believable in both discussion and writing.

Every state uses a set of rights to establish laws and regulations. Explore the Wyandotte Constitution as it was written in 1859 and compare it with how rights in Kansas have changed, especially those that pertain to gender and race. A...

By creating an energy brochure, teams of science learners inform others about the advantages of using alternative energy sources. An instructions page for your class and a grading rubric are provided. The lesson focuses on photovoltaics,...

Graphs, charts, maps, diagrams. Reading and comprehending informational text is far more than just decoding the words on a page. Here's a packet that provides young readers with practice answering constructed response questions using...

Seventh graders get the option of choosing their own text from a selection to read and gather more information as part of their research. Learners discuss the difference in reading for research and reading for pleasure. They also begin...

This lesson is preparation-intensive, but well worth the investment. You will construct five or six portable testing stations with which lab groups will gather data on the best position for collecting sunlight with a solar panel. This is...

High schoolers explore the overall strategies pursued by the Japanese and the Allies in the initial months of World War II. What each side hoped to accomplish what what actually happened forms the basis of a comparison made in this...

What is on your pupils' "Bucket Lists" - the list of things they want to do before they die? Their choices of activities for this list could be very revealing, and is a great source of inspiration for a personal poem. The lesson plan...

Emotional appeal or argument? That is the question. An informative instructional activity helps your class recognize the difference between a logical argument and an emotional appeal and learn how to craft an argumentative response....

For a class learning about Chinese and Irish immigration in America, here's a great starting lesson plan. It has your critical thinkers examining song lyrics, the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, and a political cartoon, and finally...

As part of a study of World War I, class members read newspaper articles from the time that urge American involvement, non-involvement, or neutrality. Using the provided worksheet, groups analyze the articles noting the central argument...

Considering a college search project? After picking a possible career choice, and determining if that career needs a technical college or university education, individuals examine a wide variety of sources and select three schools...

It's important to cite sources! Scholars take a closer look at their research about DDT by examining how to cite sources. Learners take turns sharing information that would be used to cite sources to complement Rachel Carson:...

Using primary source documents, young historians explore the strategies the US used to defeat Japan during WWII. They also learn about the American military experience, and innovations that changed the style of warfare. High schoolers...

Using the paintings On to Liberty and A Ride for Liberty, 10th graders analyze historical perspectives on life after the Civil War. They attempt to determine what the Civil War meant for free slaves, then read a paragraph highlighting...

What was the relationship like between George and Martha Washington? To protect their privacy, Martha Washington destroyed all her husband’s letters after his death so historians have little evidence of their lives together. Two letters...