Curated OER
My Great-Grandmother's Gourd
Sixth graders read the book My Great-Grandmother's Gourd and answer short answer questions about the change of culture in the book. For this culture lesson plan, 6th graders discover culture diffusion, invention, and innovation.
Curated OER
What Is That Thing?
Could your class identify an old-fashioned can opener? What about a rotary phone,...
Curated OER
Was There an Industial Revolution? Americans at Work Before the Civil War
Students tabulate the First Industrial Revolution where a significant number of inventions and innovations appeared transforming American life. Cite examples of change (ex. telegraph) in the lives of Americans during the era of question....
New Jersey Historical Commission and New Jersey Council for the Humanities
Thomas Edison: The Wizard of Menlo Park
What would change in your daily life due to a power outage? Here, learners explore the inventions brought to us by the one and only, Thomas Edison, and imagine a day without them. Scholars take part in a grand conversation and write a...
Teach Engineering
Design a Flying Machine
Wrap up the unit in one final design. Pairs use their knowledge of aviation to design new flying machines and record how their designs take into consideration the forces that act upon airplanes. The pupils determine whether their designs...
Curated OER
#2 Pencil Innovations: Inventions, Science
Ask your class to consider a #2 Pencil to show how inventive thinking can be stimulated by making innovations to an everyday object. There is also an interesting extension included that refers to a book about the history of the pencil....
Curated OER
New Sights and Sounds: Inventions That Changed A Century
Students analyze the role and impact of technological innovation in the late 19th and early 20th century. They evaluate manuscripts, sound recordings, and motion pictures to construct historical meaning. Students observe the connections...
Curated OER
Historic Earth Science Innovations
Students research the demands or limitations on Earth scientists. In groups, they design and build a model that would be useful to them in the lab or field. They share their model and their ideas behind it to the class and answer any...
Curated OER
Post-Civil War American History
Fifth graders examine significant events in Post-Civil War America. In this Post-Civil War lesson, 5th graders investigate the important events after the war in 19th century America. They read primary source documents about six topics...
Scholastic
It's a Whatchamacallit
Learners formulate new applications for simple machines in an original invention that solves a common problem. They brainstorm ideas for a new product using simple machines and communicate a finished project through an oral,...
DocsTeach
Patent Analysis: Joseph Glidden's Barbed Wire
Barbed wire may have made cattle farming easier, but it brought to an end the free-roaming days of the plains. No longer could Native American groups continue their nomadic lifestyle, and the days of cowboys herding large groups of...
DocsTeach
Patent Analysis: Wright Brothers' Flying Machine
Ideas take flight in an exciting activity exploring the Wright Brothers. Scholars view the Wright Brothers' patent for their flying machine and makes educated guesses as to the purpose of the document. Scholars discuss the purpose of...
Curated OER
Block Buster
Here is a unique and innovative game which will help your charges learn the important skill of proofreading and editing their own writing. The class is divided up into groups, and each group uses actual samples of writing from students...
Rutgers University
How the Allies Won World War II: Island-hopping in the Central Pacific
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...
Curated OER
Mathematics in Bioengineering: Its Application for Today's Students
High schoolers explore the different fields of bioengineering. They will create and interpret graphs from cancel cells data. They then calculate the amount of drugs found in blood and eliminated by the body over time.
Curated OER
Calling All Inventors: Celebrate National Inventors Month
Start off the school year by engaging learners in a creative study of inventors and their inventions.
Curated OER
Innovations That Stand the Test of Time
Students create a class presentation that explains the value of an innovation to society. In this design innovation lesson, students discuss relationships among math, science, technology, and engineering, read a story about design...
Curated OER
Is Capitalism Good for the Poor? | How Incentives Affect Innovation
Students focus on the role played by a nation's institutions in generating creativity, invention and innovation, and analyzes how innovation promotes the economic growth that raises standards of living and alleviates poverty.
Curated OER
Technology: Past, Present, and Future
Students examine inventions of the past and present and explore how inventions inspire and lead to the development of other inventions.
Curated OER
Early Industrialization
Students explore early industrialization, technology, and invention. In this historical lesson plan, students participate in eleven different activities in order to understand the Industrialization of the United States. Activities...
Benjamin Franklin Tercentenary
Guess What Benjamin Franklin Did!
Students research Ben Franklin's inventions. In this invention lesson plan, students see the relationship between a need and an invention. Students will engage in a class discussion, read a handout, and play a match the invention to its...
Curated OER
The American Turtle, 1776
Fifth graders evaluate David Bushnell's 1776 American Turtle. In this history instructional activity students analyze and make predictions about the first submarine invented by David Bushnell after view pictures. They compare the drawing...
Curated OER
Inventors
Students identify two inventors from the time period 1880-1920. They include information detailing one product or technological advancement each inventor was responsible for. Students use specific language and detail to discuss how...
Curated OER
Look! You're Wearing Geography
Sixth graders explore economic systems. In this economics instructional activity, 6th graders discover global markets. Students work in small groups to identify where their clothing and materials originated. Students locate countries on...