American Press Institute
Newspapers in Your Life: What’s News Where?
Big news isn't necessarily newsworthy everywhere! How do journalists decide what to cover with so much happening around them? A instructional activity on media literacy examines the factors that affect the media's choice of stories to...
Newspaper Association of America
Community Connections with Geography and the Newspaper
Understanding geography and government begins at the local level. Using maps and the parts of a newspaper, a unit plan introduces the concept of community. It starts with the creation of classroom and school maps, and then moves through...
University of Kansas
Newspaper in the Classroom
Newspapers aren't only for reading—they're for learning skills, too! A journalism unit provides three lessons each for primary, intermediate, and secondary grades. Lessons include objectives, materials, vocabulary, and procedure, and...
Newspaper Association of America
Cereal Bowl Science and Other Investigations with the Newspaper
What do cereal, fog, and space shuttles have to do with newspapers? A collection of science investigations encourage critical thinking using connections to the various parts of the newspaper. Activities range from building origami seed...
Curated OER
Day to Day Life in a Small African Village
Students analyze what it is like to live in an African village. They locate Tanzania on a map and compare life there to life here in the United States. They write about the health issues in East Africa.
Curated OER
Cruise the News
Students utilize newspapers as a resource to complete various tasks. They read articles, write summaries, investigate the classified section, write commercials, and circle spelling words.
Curated OER
Introduction to Canada
Ninth graders investigate the country of Canada by examining their media in this geography lesson. They use the Internet to research Canadian newspapers and analyze a topic covered by both US and Canadian media sources. After comparing...
Curated OER
Mapping the News
Students explore cartography. For this map skills and map making lesson, Students work in groups to create wall size world maps including legends, compass roses, latitude and longitude, and physical features. Students collect current...
Energy for Keeps
The Energy Times
Extra! Extra! Read all about past and present energy use in a classroom-made historical newspaper. Useful as a cross-curricular assignment between science, history, and language arts, the project is sure to get young journalists...
Curated OER
Geography: Mapping Newspaper Coverage
Students examine the locations of stories appearing in newspapers and determine where to assign reporters. Using various maps, they connect the stories to the correct maps and create charts of the story locations. Students explain their...
Curated OER
Celebrate La Posada in Mexico!
Students locate and identify Mexico on a world map. They develop an understanding of celebrating La Posada in Mexico as they listen to a story about the tradition of La Posada. They create a representation of a pointsettia. They act out...
US Mint
Absolutely and Relatively: The Puerto Rico Quarter Reverse
How much does your class know about Puerto RIco? How much can they learn from the back of a 2009 quarter? Use the coin, part of a series of quarters that depict US territories, to teach learners about the geography, culture, and history...
Curated OER
Rivers and Streams Research Activity
In this geography research worksheet, student examine books, newspapers, or the internet to find information about the history of flooding in the United Kingdom. They write a fictional account in a news report, TV interview, or a blog....
Curated OER
Nellie Bly's Newspaper Club: Introducing the Science of Writing
Students evaluate a video about Nellie Bly, a famous reporter from the 19th century. They consider what makes a high-interest news article, write an essay in pairs and present it a literary tea.
Curated OER
Inventions Change the World: The Enigma Machine
Third graders explore WWII by analyzing technological advances. For this invention lesson, 3rd graders discuss the use of the Enigma machine which decoded private German messages that communicated with U-boats. Students utilize a...
Curated OER
Samuel's Choice - Social Studies Using Children's Literature
Fifth graders read a book about independence, freedom, and slavery. Students create a story map of the book. They research the causes of the Civil War. Students write a newspaper article from the point of view of an American colonist.
Curated OER
Natural Resources
Students explore Iowa geography and topographic maps. For this geography and topographic maps lesson, student investigate maps, newspapers, Iowa flora and fauna. Students gain an understanding of how different landforms can be identified...
Curated OER
All about Greece
In this Greece worksheet, students learn and report about Greece. Activities include geography, natural resources, recipes, landmarks, history and climate. Students do their own research.
Curated OER
Jackie Steals Home
Students read articles relating to Jackie Robinson's breaking of the racial barrier in professional baseball. This leads to a deeper exploration of racism in the United States. They use a variety of worksheets imbedded in this plan to...
Curated OER
Compare and Contrast Culture
Fifth graders compare and contrast the cultures of American culture with that of the other cultures of North America. Using traditional and Internet research, 5th graders gather data on one element of culture for comparison. Data...
Curated OER
The Secret Garden
Students research the culture and geography of India and England while reading "The Secret Garden". Using this information, they write at least three predictions about what they believe might happen in the story. Using the Internet,...
Curated OER
Media Coverage
Students research news coverage to examine how a local issue does not receive fair attention in the news. In this new coverage instructional activity, students discuss where they get their information and why some issues are ignored....
Curated OER
Making Headlines
Students identify acts of kindness in the news. For this random acts of kindness lesson, students discuss kindness, find a news article about an act of kindness that took place in another country, locate the country on a map, and write a...
Curated OER
Why Not Visit My Country?
Learners research a country using the Travel Languages Web site. Using MS Publisher, they create a travel flyer about the country. Using Inspiration, they develop a concept map of what they learned about their country.