Stability is key when building a bridge. Scholars explore the forces acting upon bridges through an analysis of Newton's Laws and Hooke's Law. The activity asks individuals to apply their learning by building a bridge of their own.

Though Upton Sinclair's novel The Jungle shocked the American public into a thorough examination of the meat-packing industry, the author was disappointed that his book's main argument—the exploitation of American immigrants—was not...

Show how exponential growth can look linear. Pupils come to understand the importance of looking at the entire picture as they compare the US population to the world population. Initially, the populations look linear with the same rate...

After reading The Great Gatsby, groups return to the text and note passages where Fitzgerald uses symbols and color imagery in his narrative. They then develop a presentation that explains the context, the implications, and possible...

A resource rich in information—and nutrients. Learners create agars for the purpose of cell cultivation in Petri dishes. The lesson provides instructions on how to create agars for the cultivation of different microorganisms.

The war against Communism and Joseph McCarthy’s place in it are the focus of a series of three lessons examining postwar America from 1945-1950. This first lesson asks groups to read an introduction that describes the Verona Project and...

Stick this resource in the "Use" column. In the second installment of a six-part series, learners use glue sticks to demonstrate forces. Using glue sticks, instructors can demonstrate tension, compression, and torsion.

Introduces your class to the types of loads experienced by a bridge. Groups calculate the ultimate load combinations to determine the maximum load requirement. Using this information, builders then determine the amount of material...

"Love it or leave it." "You're either for us or against us." Rhetoric and it's polarizing effects are the focus of a lesson plan that uses John Brown's attack on Harper's Ferry as an exemplar. Groups examine primary source documents,...

The industrialization and urbanization of Alabama during the New South era (1865-1914) is the focus of a lesson that asks class members to use primary source documents to examine the impact of industrialization on Alabama workers and...

Your young physicists analyze the forms of four equivalent exponential expressions representing an amount of a radioactive material in a substance. They show how each expression is equivalent to the others and what aspects of the decay...

Represent family history visually by requiring your young artists to create family trees that express balance and symmetry. Pupils examine works of art, research their family histories, and put together large family tree posters.

Your algebra learners make predictions using the concepts of a linear model from real-life data given in table form. Learners analyze and discuss solutions without having to write a linear equation.

Focus on how an artist creates emphasis on certain areas of a work with an examination of several works of art and a printmaking project. Follow the discussion suggestions and step-by-step printmaking instructions to successfully...

Experiment with light and shadow with a photography lesson. Learners first view several artistic photographs. They then play with different levels of light and various objects, eventually putting together compositions and taking pictures...

You can create a camera with even the most unassuming materials. Learners view photographs and talk about the art. Some background information is included about the camera obscura for you to present before individuals make their own...

As part of a study of saving choices and opportunity costs, class members listen to a reading of Lois Lenski's Cotton in My Sack, and then evaluate the spending choices made by the Hutley family.  

This is great go-to activity for those spring or fall days when the weather beckons your geometry class outside. Learners start with a small tree, devising strategies to accurately estimate the leaf count. They must then tackle the...

What better way to study survey design than to design your own survey! Bring a versatile data analysis project to your AP Statistics class, and encourage them to apply the practices from their instructions to a real-world survey...

Encourage your sophomores to become life-long learners with the series of activities contained in this packet. Class members set goals, review personal targets, identify strategies to improve their study skills, and develop an...

Equip learners with safety knowledge in the case of an earthquake. After coloring the places to go to get help after a quake, and label places that wouldn't be safe to go after a quake, young geologists simulate three levels of...

What constitutes an effective apology? After considering a series of scenarios, class members develop criteria for an effective apology and then use these indicators to evaluate Canada's Prime Minister Harper's apology to former...

Faster than a speedy calculator! Show your classes how to use polynomial identities to multiply numbers quickly using mental math. 

The Pythagorean Theorem makes an appearance yet again in this lesson on polynomial identities. Learners prove a method for finding Pythagorean triples by applying the difference of squares identity.