Howard Hughes Medical Institute
Viral Lysis and Budding
How do some viruses spread so quickly, and why do they make us feel terrible? Answer these (and many more) questions through a simple yet impactful lessons. Pupils observe demonstrations that show the two methods viruses use to escape...
National Endowment for the Humanities
The Preamble to the Constitution: A Close Reading Lesson
"We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union..." These familiar lines begin the Preamble to the Constitution, but do learners know what they mean? A close reading exercise takes a look at the language of the...
Kenan Fellows
Math Made Simple as 1-2-3: Simplified Educational Approach to Algebra
Writing an equation of a line is as easy as m and b. A lesson presentation gives individuals different strategies for writing equations of lines. Some items provide a slope and a point while others provide two points. Whatever the given,...
Montana State University
One Mountain, Many Cultures
Americans may think of Mount Everest as a region dedicated to adventurous hikers, but many cultures have flourished there! Learners read informative books, watch videos, participate in classroom discussion, analyze folk tales, and...
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Sentence Structure of Technical Writing
Most teachers and scholars look for a way to simplify information. Informational how-to slides simplify the process of technical writing into a step-by-step process. Learners gather information on what to do, as well as what to avoid....
Film Education
The Jungle Book
Accompany a viewing of Disney's live-action feature film, The Jungle Book, with a packet equipped with several activities focused on story elements. Scholars discuss and complete diagrams and charts about the movie's characters, setting,...
College Board
AP Calculus: Slope Fields
Ready to field questions about slope fields? An article on AP® Calculus teaching methods describes how to teach about slope fields to solve differential equations. It gives some sample problems to consider with the class and how to...
Discovery Education
Satellite Telemetry
Satellites require rockets to launch, but it doesn't take a rocket scientist to understand them. Future engineers learn about how satellites send data to Earth and how to interpret satellite images. They see how radio waves play a role...
Digital Public Library of America
The American Whaling Industry
When thinking about the American whaling industry most imagine Moby Dick and Nantucket sleigh rides, harpoons and scrimshaw, whale-oil lamps and baleen in women's corsets. But it may come as a surprise that the industry was also...
Smithsonian Institution
Trait Tracker
Help mice beat the odds with an exciting activity about traits. Biologists discover the role of diet and other factors on animal traits by participating in a simulation activity. Teams collect and evaluate data to understand how certain...
Smithsonian Institution
Weather Widget
What's so difficult about predicting the weather? Scholars work collaboratively to build a device that models how meteorologists use computers to forecast weather. Team members collect and interpret data while working together to...
Curated OER
Money Bags
Students compare budgets of various federal agencies and graph the monetary relations between these top-funded agencies. They propose alternate budgets and justify their own monetary priorities.
Curated OER
Imagery
Ninth graders explore poems, various poetic devices, and identify imagery used in poetry. In groups, they examine poetic devices, define them, paraphrase and summarize poetry. Students study poetry by Robert Frost as they explore...
Curated OER
Up, Up, and Away
Fifth graders participate in a WebQuest that introduces them to a study on clouds and how they relate to weather systems.
Orange County Department of Education
Integrity and "Thank You, M'am"
Ninth graders explore the definition of integrity through a class discussion. They provide positive/negative examples from the story and their own experiences. Students determine character traits by analyzing the dialogue in a short...
Curated OER
Quoting, Citing, and Paraphrasing
Beware! (not only the Ides of March). Warn your researchers of the dangers of plagiarism! After defining the term, viewers are introduced to the consequences of and forms of plagiarism, as well as tips on how to avoid plagiarism....
Curated OER
Freak the Mighty: Chapter 18 Semantic Feature Analysis
Intelligent? Arrogant? Obnoxious? After completing Chapter 18 of Freak the Mighty, individuals fill out a semantic feature chart for characters in Rodman Philbrick's novel. Group members then use their charts to discuss relationships...
Curated OER
Ancient American Art and Geometry
Students explore the relationship between geometry and ancient American art. They see how to recognize geometric properties in specific works and explain how these properties contribute to their meaning and artistic merit.
Curated OER
Perceiving the Prairie
Twelfth graders explore the changing concept of "prairie" through written and artistic works. They write their own poem or essay describing the prairie after discussing how differently people perceive the prairie.
Curated OER
Maximize It!
Students design a rectangular box without a lid that has the largest possible volume using the supplied sheet of centimeter graph paper. They work in groups to construct different size boxes to determine the largest possible volume and...
Curated OER
A Walk Around the School: Mapping Places Near and Far
After reading Pat Hutchins’ Rosie’s Walk, have your young cartographers create a map of Rosie’s walk. Then lead them on a walk around the school. When you return class members sequence the walk by making a list of how the class got from...
Curated OER
Spice Up Your Life
Second graders identify major spices found in the world. They link spices with countries they are grown in and the uses for these valuable items.
Curated OER
Ohm's Law
If your future physicists know how to construct simple circuits, include resistors, and use a multi-meter to measure voltage, then you might employ this instructional activity on Ohm's law. Each lab group investigates the...