Development of agriculture and writing

The Paleolithic and Neolithic eras of the Stone Age. Created by Sal Khan.

Material Type: Lesson

Author: Sal Khan

Renewable Energy Living Lab: The Bright Idea

Students use real-world data to evaluate the feasibility of solar energy and other renewable energy sources in different U.S. locations. Working in small groups, students act as engineers evaluating the suitability of installing solar panels at four company locations. They access data from the online Renewable Energy Living Lab from which they make calculations and analyze how successful solar energy generation would be, as well as the potential for other power sources at those locations. Then they summarize their results, analysis and recommendations in the form of feasibility plans prepared for a CEO.

Material Type: Activity/Lab

Authors: Jessica Noffsinger, Jonathan Knudtsen, Karen Johnson, Mike Mooney, Minal Parekh, Scott Schankweiler

Get the Word Out at McDonalds!

Students take part in a hypothetical scenario that challenges them to inform customers at a local restaurant of how their use and disposal of plastics relates/contributes to the Great Pacific garbage patch (GPGP). What students ultimately do is research information on the plastics pollution in the oceans and present that information as a short, eye-catching newsletter suitable to hand out to restaurant customers. This activity focuses on teaching students to conduct their own research on a science-technology related topic and present it in a compelling manner that includes citing source information without plagiarism. By doing this, students gain experience and skills with general online searching as well as word processing and written and visual communication.

Material Type: Activity/Lab

Authors: Andrey Koptelov, Nathan Howell

A Literary Glossary for Literature and Language Arts

Our literary glossary provides a comprehensive list of terms and concepts along with lesson plans for teaching these topics in K-12 classrooms. Whether you are starting with a specific author, concept, or text, or teaching a specific literary term, but do not have a lesson or activity for students to work with, teachers and students will find what they're looking for here.

Material Type: Teaching/Learning Strategy

Hurricanes

Students learn what causes hurricanes and what engineers do to help protect people from destruction caused by hurricane winds and rain. Research and data collection vessels allow for scientists and engineers to model and predict weather patterns and provide forecasts and storm warnings to the public. Engineers are also involved in the design and building of flood-prevention systems, such as levees and floodwalls. During the 2005 hurricane season, levees failed in the greater New Orleans area, contributing to the vast flooding and destruction of the historic city. In the associated activity, students learn how levees work, and they build their own levees and put them to the test!

Material Type: Activity/Lab, Lesson Plan

Authors: Abby Watrous, Brian Kay, Denise W. Carlson, Janet Yowell, Karen King, Kate Beggs

All's Well That Ends Well

The Folger Shakespeare Library provides the full searchable text of "All's Well That Ends Well" to read online or download as a PDF. All of the lines are numbered sequentially to make it easier and more convenient to find any line.

Material Type: Reading

Author: William Shakespeare

6th Grade VI History Month Activity

This is an example of how teachers on a grade level can collaborate to create a Grade Level VI History Month Activity.

Material Type: Homework/Assignment

Author: Dahlia Knowles

Everything CCSS "I Can" for K-8

A site where busy teachers can go to find current, relevant, meaningful and ready-to-go lessons, activities and resources that fit their classroom structure and meet national and state standards.

Material Type: Lesson Plan, Teaching/Learning Strategy

Authors: Cathy Henry, Jill McEldowney

PBS LearningMedia Back to School Collection

Get ready for the start of school with some of PBS LearningMedia's favorite back-to-school resources! This collection features activities and video resources to help students get to know each other and their new school routines, and lesson plans to help you get your new class off to a great start.

Material Type: Activity/Lab, Game, Interactive, Lesson Plan, Teaching/Learning Strategy

Argumentative Writing/WWI & WWII Unit

In this 28 day unit, students will gain background information on historic wars, compare different genres presentations of events, recognize different points of view, research an essential question, compile evidence, create warrants that lead to a claim which answers the essential question, and write an argumentative essay.

Material Type: Lesson Plan, Unit of Study

US History - Revolution through Reconstruction

Eighth grade students in Michigan continue their study of United States History from the development of the Constitution through Reconstruction. Geographic, civics/government, and economics content is integrated within the historical context. Students should understand the relevancy and connections of this history to their lives. Students will use significant content knowledge, research, and inquiry to analyze issues. They develop reasoned arguments and write a persuasive civic essay addressing issues from the past within a historical context.

Material Type: Textbook

Authors: Alyson Klak, Amy Carlson, Angie Samp, Ben Pineda, Brandi Platte, Erin Luckhardt, Joe Macaluso

The Politics of Sports

This Open Educational Resource is a collection of texts and materials that team together students’ familiarity with sports and critical inquiry skills. Sports has an undeniable fascination for cultural studies scholars, and the athletic competition and the social conversations it elicits can help students to see how ethical argumentation plays beyond the walls of the ivory tower. The Politics of Sports, as a broad field of study, is of interest to both scholars and pundits alike. Through inquiry into sports, students can see how debate functions in both academic and public spheres. We have found sports to inspire a wide range of independent research topics in our writing classrooms that challenge students to engage with complex research questions that delve into the social structures that shape what we value and how we act as citizens. Sports is often central to the college experience and ubiquitous in families and communities around the world. The wide variety of audiences interested in sports the personal, economic, and social values tied up in sports invites research writers to think carefully about audience, community, and stakes of argument. We believe that The Politics of Sports has the potential to capture the interest of college students in order to excite them to begin a research journey with a sense of authority and investment in a topic that is at once familiar and complex enough to yield a wide range of inquiry .

Material Type: Textbook

Authors: Anna Carroll, Eleanor Wakefield

American Colonial Life in the Late 1700s: Distant Cousins

This lesson introduces students to American colonial life and has them compare the daily life and culture of two different colonies in the late 1700s. Students study artifacts of the thirteen original British colonies and write letters between fictitious cousins in Massachusetts and Delaware.

Material Type: Lesson Plan

Anne Frank: Writer

This lesson concentrates on Anne Frank as a writer. After a look at Anne Frank the adolescent, and a consideration of how the experiences of growing up shaped her composition of the Diary, students explore some of the writing techniques Anne invented for herself and practice those techniques with material drawn from their own lives.

Material Type: Lesson Plan

COVID-19 & Health Equity, Grades 3-5

The COVID-19 Pandemic is a clear example of how science and society are connected. This unit explores how different communities are differentially impacted by the virus through the lens of historical inequities in society. In the context of decisions their families make, students explore the basics of how the virus affects people, and design investigations to explore how it spreads from person to person, and what we can do to prevent that spread.

Material Type: Lesson, Lesson Plan, Module, Teaching/Learning Strategy, Unit of Study

Authors: Learning in Places, NextGen Science Storylines, OpenSciEd

What is History? Timelines and Oral Histories

This lesson plan addresses the ways people learn about events from the past and discusses how historical accounts are influenced by the perspective of the person giving the account. To understand that history is made up of many people's stories of the past, students interview family members about the same event and compare the ifferent versions, construct a personal history timeline and connect it to larger historical events, and synthesize eyewitness testimony from different sources to create their own "official" account.

Material Type: Lesson Plan

Introducing Basic Media Literacy Education Skills with Greeting Cards

In this lesson, students examine and create holiday/event cards, analyze holiday elements, and create their own. The activities help students focus on the reasons for composing messages as they do.

Material Type: Activity/Lab, Lesson Plan

Doing Oral History with Vietnam War Veterans

Oral History Interviews that bring students together with veterans help to foster empathy and make history come alive. This lessons offers a step-by-step guide to doing an oral history project with Vietnam War Veterans.

Material Type: Lesson Plan

Picturing Freedom: Selma-to-Montgomery in March, 1965

After analyzing photojournalist James Karales's iconic photograph of the march, reading background material on it, and considering what the marchers might have thought and felt, students write and illustrate a postcard describing this civil rights event from a marcher's viewpoint.

Material Type: Lesson Plan

Grade 5 ELA Module 4

This module engages students in a high-interest topic—natural disasters—with a literacy focus on point of view in literature, research, opinion writing, and public speaking. The module integrates science content (about extreme natural events) with a Social Studies focus on the Western Hemisphere and the role of multinational organizations.

Material Type: Module