Curated OER
Transportation Workers
Summarizing a text means being able to identify supporting details. Your class can learn about transportation workers in Chicago as they read a one-page informational passage. When they are finished reading they'll explain what they've...
Curated OER
Alike and Different
Second graders listen to a book about how farms feed the world. They discuss elements of rural life. They listen to a story about the suburbs and discuss elements specific to a suburban community. They listen to a story about city...
DePaul University
Contrast and Evaluate Fact and Opinion
How can you tell when an author is expression an opinion or stating a fact? Use two short reading selections to emphasize the difference between a statement that you can prove and one that you can't. The first passage explains food...
Curated OER
Columbus Park
Students complete activities that go along with the study of and possible fieldtrip to Columbus Park in Chicago, IL. They discover how urban conditions influenced the creation of city parks. They examine the preservation of historic...
Curated OER
"Heritage" - "Hey, That's the Name of Our School!"
Seventh graders gain a better understanding of the canal period in U.S. History, and more specifically, discern the importance of the Illinois and Michigan Canal on the development of Illinois as a state and Chicago as a prominent city.
Curated OER
Math: Skyscraper Comparison
Students examine skyscrapers by conducting Internet research and by creating and interpreting graphs. After reading the book, "Skyscraper," they discuss reasons why the structures are built. Once they have researched the tallest...
Curated OER
Lesson Plan on World War II: Illinois Role-The 33rd Infantry Division
Students complete several creative writing assignments regarding the 33rd Infantry Division of Illinois, which was active during World War II. They discuss how this war brought about changes in the state of Illinois and specifically,...
Curated OER
¿Por qué es importante el Servicio Comunitario?
Why is it important to do community service? Read these paragraphs to discover Barack Obama and Joe Biden's stance on community service. After reading the difficult text, high schoolers must identify the principal idea and decide their...
Curated OER
Celebrating Modernism at the A Century of Progress World's Fair
Students examine aesthetic movement known as modernism, discover why organizers chose modernism as World Fair's design pattern, interpret photographs of modernist fair buildings and identify artifacts that reflect modernist ideas, and...
CHPCS
The United States in the 1920s: The New Negro Movement and the Harlem Renaissance
Music, writing, and activism all tell the story of history! The resource uses these elements and more in a presentation to discuss the Jazz Age and Harlem Renaissance. Your class views biographies, discusses important events, and...
Curated OER
A Cure for the School-Day Blues
Lessons on the Blues will have students singing for joy!
Illinois Department of Natural Resources
Section Two: Why is Biodiversity Important?
Explore soil, genetic traits, natural resources, and pollution in a series of lessons that focus on biodiversity. Kids complete experiments to learn more about the importance of varied genes and organisms in an ecosystem.
Chicago Botanic Garden
Introducing Ecosystem Services
Purifying air and water, providing soil in which to grow crops, and moving water through its natural cycle are all services an ecosystem provides that benefit humans. Lesson four in a series lets learners explore and discuss the value of...
Chicago Botanic Garden
Personal Choices and the Planet
The last activity in the series of four has individuals determine steps they can take to reduce their carbon footprints and then analyze their schools' recycling programs. Through a sustainability audit, they identify how and where their...
Chicago Botanic Garden
Calculating Your Carbon Footprint
Unplugging from technology for one day per week will decrease your carbon footprint—are you up to the challenge? Part two in a series of three allows individuals to explore their personal carbon footprints. By first taking a quiz at home...
Chicago Botanic Garden
Personal Choices and the Planet
How big is your footprint? Activity three culminates the series by having groups complete carbon footprint audits with people in their schools and/or around the districts. Groups then gather their data, create a presentation including...
Chicago Botanic Garden
Calculating Your Ecological Footprint
You can lower your ecological footprint by recycling! Lesson four in this series of five has individuals, through the use of a computer, calculate their ecological footprints. Through discussions and analysis they determine how many...
Chicago Botanic Garden
Introducing Ecosystem Services
Ecosystems provide many things humans not only use but also need in order to survive. The last lesson in the series of seven introduces scholars to the idea of ecosystem services, that ecosystems provide humans with many things we need....
Chicago Botanic Garden
Are You Bigfoot?
Scholars independently explore several websites to calculate their ecological footprint. Using their new found knowledge, they answer six short-answer questions and take part in a grand conversation with their peers about how...
Polk Bros Foundation
Meet the Nonfiction Main Idea Challenge
Help your class develop the ability to determine a main idea with a packet of materials that you can introduce and use over a period of time. The packet includes some information for the teacher and rationale for the exercises. There are...
Curated OER
Analyze Author’s Techniques, Including Figurative Language
Paul Laurence Dunbar's poem "He Had His Dream" is the focus of a quick exercise. Pupils read the poem and answer four multiple choice questions and one short answer question about specific lines in the poem and the author's purpose....
Polk Bros Foundation
A Way to Analyze Paragraphs to Figure Out the Main Idea of a Nonfiction Text
Shrink up a section by asking pupils to write down the main idea for each of seven paragraphs. There is a space provided for each main idea. When students have completed this portion, they write down what they think to be the central...
Polk Bros Foundation
History Dramatists
Bring the drama of history to life in your class and give your learners the opportunity to illustrate their understanding of a historical situation through the medium of a dialogue and/or play. Your young historians will consider a...
Curated OER
Helping the Adolescent Cope with Family Life
Students are introduced to the proper ways to deal with conflict at home. In groups, they define family based on what it means to them and identify factors that lead to a breakdown in communications. They participate in role-playing...