While a woman didn't invent the parasol, three women received patents for their improvements to the original design of umbrellas. In the first of a two-part series on inventive women, class members investigate the patent system to...

Students explore women’s history. In this women’s studies lesson, students will examine seven photographs that depict prominent female figures from Texas’s history. Students will engage in a discussion of the photographs as a mode of...

Students participate in a simulation and compare and contrast the arguments for and against womens' right to vote. In this civil rights lesson, students simulate disenfranchisement of women by allowing only half of the class to vote on a...

Students evaluate primary source documents. They assess the development of women's rights in the United States. They identify other rights beside suffrage that were important to famous women reformers.

Young scholars research women leaders and construct a dramatic panel in which these leaders compare and contrast their reigns.

“There is nothing that becommeth a maid better than soberness, silence, shamefastness, and chastity, both of body & mind.” This line, from Thomas Bentley ‘s The Monument of Matrons published in 1582, typifies the way women were...

The origins, goals, and struggles of the women's movement are the focus of a five-day series of lessons about the accomplishments of the movement and the continuing struggle for women's rights.

Meet Tu Youyou, the first woman from China to win a Nobel Prize. Display a poster of Youyou in your classroom to inspire young scientists to persevere where others have failed. Her discovery of artemisinin to cure malaria has saved...

Students determine the influence of World War II on women's roles in society. Students research the answers to questions about how women were able to enter jobs that had not been open to them before the war and how this affected society....

Eighty-eight years after women earned the right to vote, a women ran for president. Young analysts consider the role women play in politics, how they are portrayed, the standards they are held to, and if they are still treated unfairly...

After reading the article "Fun, and Risks, at the Beach in Tel Aviv," learners consider eight related questions. They'll answer who, what, when, where, why, and how about the risks several Palestinian women took as they snuck over the...

Students investigate the different women who have served in the United States Congress. They discuss Senator Hillary Clinton, conduct Internet research, and in small groups complete a grid that compares and contrasts the women who have...

Students complete Internet research to write an editorial about a topic relating to the women's rights movement and the issues presently surrounding women's rights in America and around the world.

Students investigate the role of women during the Vietnam War. They conduct Internet research, and create a Chronicle of Women in Vietnam project that could take the form of a journal, PowerPoint presentation, or scrapbook that includes...

Pupils examine the life and works of various Latin American women. After reading excerpts of each work, they answer comprehension questions and discuss as a class. In groups, they re-write the Equality of Rights in their own words and...

No unit on important women in history would be complete without a lesson on Sandra Day O'Connor. After reading background information about the first female Supreme Court justice, middle schoolers engage in several activities addressing...

Learners read and analyze Jessie Benton Fremont's travelogue of her trip out west in 1849 to identify the gender roles, social attitudes and class distinctions of the time. They then adapt the the travelogue into a film script.

Pupils assess the characteristics of leaders and the ability of women to be leaders in politics and business. They discuss Elizabeth Dole's and Hillary Clinton's possible futures as politicians and conduct an interview with a...

Students examine the historical, social, cultural and economic context of Charlotte Perkins Gilman's story, The Yellow Wallpaper. Students determine the place of the middle class woman and her role in society.

Students are introduced to the connection between women and the textile industry. Using primary source documents, they complete a handout on how gender roles have changed over the years. They examine a sampler which is connected to the...

In this aviation instructional activity, young scholars take an electronic field trip to the Aviation Museum of Kentucjy. In the process the instructional activity looks at women in aviation history. The focus is upon how they could be...

Middle schoolers examine the first settlement at Jamestown and its citizens. Using the internet, they discover the role of women and Africans in Jamestown. They role play what the settlement was like before and after women and Africans...

High schoolers research World War II primary source documents and write first person historical point of view stories.

High schoolers read Ruthanne Lum McCunn's Thousand Pieces of Gold and as a class, discuss the Chinese practice of foot binding. They work in groups to read further about how women of different cultures attempt to conform. They write...