Wind Patterns and Hydropower in the Desert?!

Global wind patterns are dictated by the movement of the Earth on its axis and are significant factors in determining the climate for regions of the planet. Students learn how the Coriolis effect and Hadley convection cells determine the location of deserts on Earth. They manipulate inflated plastic globes to discover how the Coriolis effect drives wind clockwise in the Northern Hemisphere and counterclockwise in the Southern Hemisphere. Then they incorporate latitudinal differences onto this modeling exercise to understand why deserts form at 30 degrees north and south of the equator. Once students understand the importance of global winds, they discuss hydropower in the desert. They compare and contrast two case studies: China’s Three Gorges Dam, and Chile’s proposed plant in the Atacama Desert that would creatively use solar power to move seawater up to the top of a mountain so that it can flow back down and generate power. Students note the economic, environmental, cultural and social impacts, issues and benefits of both power plants. Then they reflect, write, debate and discuss their ideas and opinions using evidence from the case studies and their own research.

Material Type: Activity/Lab

Authors: Ashley Martin, Dale Gaddis, Hannah Brooks, Lazar Trifunovic, Shay Marceau

Music: Its Language, History, and Culture

Welcome to Music 1300, Music: Its Language History, and Culture. The course has a number of interrelated objectives: 1. To introduce you to works representative of a variety of music traditions.These include the repertoires of Western Europe from the Middle Agesthrough the present; of the United States, including art music, jazz, folk, rock, musical theater; and from at least two non-Western world areas (Africa, Asia, Latin America, the Caribbean, the Middle East, Indian subcontinent). 2. To enable you to speak and write about the features of the music you study,employing vocabulary and concepts of melody, rhythm, harmony, texture, timbre,and form used by musicians. 3. To explore with you the historic, social, and cultural contexts and the role of class, ethnicity, and gender in the creation and performance of music,including practices of improvisation and the implications of oral andnotated transmission. 4. To acquaint you with the sources of musical sounds—instruments and voices fromdifferent cultures, found sounds, electronically generated sounds; basic principlesthat determine pitch and timbre. 5. To examine the influence of technology, mass media, globalization, and transnationalcurrents on the music of today. The chapters in this reader contain definitions and explanations of musical terms and concepts,short essays on subjects related to music as a creative performing art, biographical sketchesof major figures in music, and historical and cultural background information on music fromdifferent periods and places.

Material Type: Textbook

Author: Douglas Cohen

The Impact of Nuclear Fallout

Earl Ubell is a pioneer among science and health writers in America. After a long, distinguished career at The New York Herald Tribune from 1943 to 1966, he went on to work at both CBS and NBC News. Prominent in the emerging scientific writing community in the 1950s and early 1960s, he was a recipient of the Lasker Medical Journalism Award 1957. Milton Stanley Livingston was a leading physicist in the field of magnetic resonance accelerators. Working first with professor Ernest O. Lawrence at the University of California, Livingston was instrumental in the development of the Berkeley cyclotron. Moving to Cornell in 1938, Livingston was part of the core group who established nuclear physics as a field of study. Choosing to stay with the Cornell cyclotron rather than follow colleagues onto the Manhattan Project, Livingston was involved in the production of radioisotopes for medical purposes. At the time of this interview, Livingston was director of the Cambridge Electron Accelerator, a joint project of Harvard University and MIT.In this program segment Louis Lyons quizzes Earl Ubell about the lack of public knowledge and the perception of the nuclear bomb, while pressing Professor Livingston to explain exactly what nuclear fallout is, and the danger it presents.

Material Type: Diagram/Illustration, Primary Source

Using Pictures to Build Schema for Social Studies Content

Looking to help students practice "reading" images for a variety of contextual meanings while engaging in content area study? This lesson uses images of the Boston Massacre to deepen students' comprehension of both the event and the effects of propaganda. Students begin by completing an anticipation guide to introduce them to Boston Massacre, propaganda, and British/colonial reactions to the massacre. They then complete an image analysis to make inferences about various images of the massacre. The culminating activity-a presentation about students' observations and inferences-demonstrates students' knowledge of the Boston Massacre and propaganda in a variety of ways. This lesson benefits English-language learners (ELLs) and struggling readers because it involves viewing images, participating in discussions, working with peers, and listening to a read-aloud that reinforces the lesson content and vocabulary.

Material Type: Lesson Plan, Teaching/Learning Strategy

Author: Maureen Martin

The Preamble to the Constitution: A Close Reading Lesson

The Preamble is the introduction to the United States Constitution, and it serves two central purposes. First, it states the source from which the Constitution derives its authority: the sovereign people of the United States. Second, it sets forth the ends that the Constitution and the government that it establishes are meant to serve.

Material Type: Lesson Plan

Lesson 3: The Monroe Doctrine: A Close Reading

To what events in United States and European foreign affairs does the Monroe Doctrine refer? What was the primary purpose behind the Monroe Doctrine?

Material Type: Lesson Plan

What was the Harlem Renaissance?

Professor Kate Rushin describes the Harlem Renaissance as a large social and cultural movement fueled by many factors in this video from A Walk Through Harlem.

Material Type: Lecture

Examining the Legacy of the American Civil Rights Era

As part of their study of Richard Wright's "Black Boy", students research and reflect on the current black-white racial divide in America. By examining the work of literature in the context of contemporary events, students will deepen their understanding of the work and of what it means to be an American today.

Material Type: Activity/Lab, Lesson Plan

Native Americans Today

This lesson challenges students' views of Native Americans as a vanished people by asking them to compare their prior knowledge with information they gather while reading about contemporary Native Americans.

Material Type: Activity/Lab, Lesson Plan

Maya Lin

This video segment from New York Voices features Chinese American architect Maya Lin.

Material Type: Lecture

Midnight Ride of Paul Revere: Fact, Fiction, and Artistic License

This lesson encourages close study of Wood's painting, American Revolution primary sources, and Longfellow's poem to understand the significance of this historical ride in America's struggle for freedom. By reading primary sources, students learn how Paul Revere and his Midnight Ride became an American story of patriotism.

Material Type: Lesson Plan

Lesson 3: Kate Chopin's "The Awakening": Searching for Women & Identity in Chopin's "The Awakening"

By studying other female characters in "The Awakening," students will see how Chopin carefully provides many examples of a socially acceptable "role" that Edna could adopt.

Material Type: Lesson Plan

Lesson 1: President Madison's 1812 War Message: A Brief Overview

Students will read President Madison's War Message (in either an edited/annotated or full-text version) and be given the opportunity to raise questions about its contents.

Material Type: Lesson Plan

Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird: Profiles in Courage

This lesson plan asks students to read To Kill A Mockingbird carefully with an eye for all instances and manifestations of courage, but particularly those of moral courage.

Material Type: Lesson Plan

Education World

Education World is a complete online resource that teachers, administrators and school staff can visit each day to find high-quality and in-depth original content. We update the site daily, offering: --Carefully curated news briefs on topics that matter to educators; --Lesson plans, printables, worksheets and thousands of other classroom-ready resources; --EdTech tips and ideas as well as reviews of apps, websites and tech products; and --A huge library of professional development articles and columns.

Material Type: Activity/Lab, Game, Homework/Assignment, Lesson Plan

Decoding the Dystopian Characteristics of Macintosh's "1984" Commercial

This lesson uses the "1984" Macintosh Commercial to introduce students to dystopian characteristics. Students analyze techniques used in the commercial and identify the comments that it makes about contemporary society.

Material Type: Activity/Lab, Lesson Plan

What Made George Washington a Good Military Leader?

What combination of experience, strategy, and personal characteristics enabled Washington to succeed as a military leader? In this unit, students will read the Continental Congress's resolutions granting powers to General Washington; analyze some of Washington's wartime orders, dispatches, and correspondence in terms of his mission and the characteristics of a good general.

Material Type: Lesson

Lesson 1: On the Eve of War: North vs. South

This lesson will examine the economic, military and diplomatic strengths and weaknesses of the North and South on the eve of the Civil War. In making these comparisons students will use maps and read original documents to decide which side, if any, had an overall advantage at the start of the war.

Material Type: Lesson Plan

Lesson 2: The Debate in Congress on the Sedition Act

What provisions in the U.S. Constitution are relevant to the debate over the Sedition Act? For this lesson, students will read brief excerpts from actual debates in the House of Representatives as the legislators attempted to work with the version of the bill "Punishment of Crime" (later known as the Sedition Act) already passed by the Senate.

Material Type: Lesson Plan

African-American Soldiers After World War I: Had Race Relations Changed?

In this lesson, students view archival photographs, combine their efforts to comb through a database of more than 2,000 archival newspaper accounts about race relations in the United States, and read newspaper articles written from different points of view about post-war riots in Chicago.

Material Type: Lesson Plan