Curated OER
Crime Drama Teaching Units
Investigate the nature of crime dramas on television. What exactly are they trying to portray? Questions and a comparison chart support learners as they watch shows from Canada, Great Britain, and the United States. An oral presentation...
Curated OER
Children's Media and Censorship
High schoolers form opinions about children and television censorship after analyzing literature. They complete a journal writing activity to identify the topic and make a list of inappropriate television shows for children. Next, they...
Curated OER
Everyone's a Critic: Analyzing Sitcoms as Cultural Texts
Start by defining the word sitcom with the goal of launching a discussion. What exactly is a sitcom? How is a sitcom different from sketch comedy, drama, and reality television? Class members give examples, remember storylines they've...
Curated OER
Little House in the Census: Almanzo and Laura Ingalls Wilder
How would you use census data from 1880-1900? Here are a set of ways you can incorporate the book Little House on the Prairie and US census data from that time period. Learners will research the validity or the book based on factual...
Curated OER
Figure This! Math Challenges for Families
Young mathematicians complete a family math challenge packet. They will complete a packet of mixed math activities. They work with graphs, comparing numerical data, tessellations, and probability.
Curated OER
Television News
Different media sources portray news in a variety of ways. In groups of three, learners look at different news sources, bringing in all the findings the next day. Three handouts help scholars compare sources, define specific terms used...
Kenan Fellows
Unit 2: DNA Analysis
Ever wonder how they solve those mysterious murders in TV crime dramas? The second of four units in a Biotechnology series introduces scholars to the many methods of DNA analysis. Pupils create and run their own gel electrophoresis...
NASA
Observing Monsoon Weather Patterns with TRMM Data
Follow a fabulous slide show on how monsoons form and how satellite technology is being used to observe the phenomena, explaining why they occur. Afterward, visit the TRMM (Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission) website to access actual...
Curated OER
True Spin: Music
Upper graders take a critical look at art criticism, music, and politics. They watch one segment of "True Spin," produced by VH1 music television and then discuss myths that relate to art and music. Several modern songs are analyzed...
Curated OER
Violence On TV
Learners examine violence on TV. For this data collection lesson, students explore TV violence. Learners watch TV shows and fill out a checklist about the amount of violence. Students organize and analyze the information to make a report.
Curated OER
Using Excel to Reference and Graph Live Data from a Web Site
Students collect live buoy data about water temperatures in the Gulf of Mexico from the Internet and work individually to organize their data and create a line graph using Excel Spreadsheet. Students analyze their data and examine any...
Curated OER
Scatter Plots and Line of Best Fit – TV Task
This handout begins by asking your statisticians to form hypotheses on the correlation between test scores and student height and test scores and the number of hours watching TV. Then using specific data, your class will create scatter...
Virginia Department of Education
Calculating Measures of Dispersion
Double the fun — calculate two measures of deviation. The lesson plan provides information to lead the class through the process of calculating the mean absolute deviation and the standard deviation of a data set. After learning how to...
ReadWriteThink
Critical Media Literacy: Commercial Advertising
Commercial advertising—we can't get away from it, but do we realize just how often we are being advertised to? With this lesson plan, scholars analyze mass media to identify how its techniques influence our daily lives. Learners browse...
EngageNY
Analysis, Reflection, and Introduction to the Painted Essay: The Invention of Television
Paint me a picture. Scholars complete a painted essay after examining the author's note in The Boy Who Invented TV. Learners identify various parts of the essay by using different paint colors and then complete task cards, using evidence...
Facing History and Ourselves
The Nazis in Power: Propaganda and Conformity
The Nazis used the power of propaganda to encourage confirmative views and the discrimination of Jews. A social studies resource illustrates these issues through discussion, image analysis, and a writing exercise.
PBS
Light Absorption: Effects of Light | UNC-TV Science
Beat the summer heat by exploring the properties of color. Scientists view a video explaining the relationship between light absorption and energy transfer using variables including intensity, time, and wavelength. A multiple-choice...
Curated OER
Sex on TV: Teens and Parents Talk
Students observe human psychology by completing a media analysis worksheet. In this parent and teen communication lesson, students identify the main programs on television today and how sex is used to sell the program as well as...
Curated OER
Collect and Organize Data
In this data analysis worksheet, 4th graders use a tally chart about favorite television programs. They record which are least or most popular, rankings, and combinations of programs.
Curated OER
Data Analysis
Twelfth graders collect and analyze data. In this secondary end-of-course mathematics lesson, 12th graders formulate a question they would like to answer and decide on an appropriate means of data collection. Students present their...
Curated OER
Categorizing Data and Bias
In this categorizing data and bias worksheet, 9th graders solve 10 different problems that include various types of qualitative or quantitative data. First, they determine if the problem stated is univariate or bivariate data. Then,...
Curated OER
Plot of a Short Story (SMART Board)
Help your pupils track the plot of a short story with this SMART Board activity. Using the short story "The Dinner Party" by Mona Gardner (though the lesson would work with any other short story), they define the exposition, rising...
Curated OER
Your Tax Dollars at Work
In order to understand how tax dollars are spent, young economists use given data and graph it on a circle graph. Circle graphs are highly visual and can help individuals describe data. A class discussion follows the initial activity.
PBS
Convection: Heat Transfer | UNC-TV Science
Learn why what goes up must come down in both air and liquids. Investigators discover how convection transfers thermal energy and the movement of particles in liquids and gases due to density differences by viewing an animated video....