Students apply previous knowledge to design their own great room. Using appropriate color schemes, they also consider room traffic patterns and furniture arrangements. While designing their areas, students give attention to placement...

Design and construct buildings with rooftop gardens. Junior engineers work in groups to build two buildings and then perform experiments to determine whether or not a garden affects the building temperatures. They graph and interpret...

The Nashua River serves as the focal point of an investigation of the treatment of and care for natural resources. A reading of A River Rand Wild: An Environmental History by Lynne Cherry, launches the study and class members consider...

How do you solve for an unknown angle? In this sixth installment of a 36-part series, young mathematicians use concepts learned in middle school geometry to set up and solve linear equations to find angle measures.

Microsoft's Flight simulator is the focal point of this instructional activity. By participating in this activity, teenagers role-play what is necessary for piloting an airplane. They explore the concepts of flight. You will need to...

Get to know your students with this project. Each individual writes an autobiography that is at least seven pages long with major facts, visual facts, focal stories, and chronology. The lesson includes a point breakdown for the...

Students explore a programming curriculum based in the Java language. They start with the basic information needed to code and run their first program. Students analyze the planning, debugging and testing points of the unit. They write a...

If you're looking for a fantastic cross-curricular lesson on the Statue of Liberty, then this lesson is for you! Learners watch a Reading Rainbow episode which focuses on the Statue, then gather facts about the creation, construction,...

Turn your 6th graders into detectives while growing their love of reading. Using critical thinking skills, they will be able to describe the five basic elements of detective fiction, read detective novels, make predictions, use the...

Students examine the elements of composition in various artworks. They analyze and discuss paintings, explore "The National Gallery of Art" website, identify the shape of compositions in paintings, and draw a diagram.

After watching a video of Native American artist Maria Martinez create art out of clay, learners will create burnished coil pots similar to those made by artist, Kerry Moosman. This lesson plan includes a supply list, web links,...

How did free and enslaved blacks work to craft freedom for themselves and their families before the Civil War? Young historians read about the life of Thomas Day, a free black man who also owned slaves and had abolitionist ties in...

In a hands-on learning activity, pupils read about and recreate the experience of Harriet Jacobs, author of one of the most famous slave narratives of all time in which she describes her years of hiding from her master in a...

Teach your class how to get out of a cell — or break in. The third installment in a seven-part series introduces the class to cell membranes and their functions. The lesson plan includes information to present to the class,...

Students establish classifications of shapes by various properties (angles, sides, etc.). They introduce the important properties of common shapes. Students develop an awareness of the wide variety of ways the 2-D shapes can be alike.

Students create a background with a marbling technique. They plan and create a figure from assorted papers, mixing solids and patterns. Students glue the figure to the background, and embellish negative space with glitter.

Eighth graders use mathematical expressions to solve problems.  In this basic properties of operations, 8th graders use prior knowledge and logical reasoning to solve equations. Students analyze an equation by solving a...

Students perform an experiment to demonstrate the principles of antibody-antigen binding, the secondary immune response, cross reactivity, and complement fixation. The materials to be used include antibodies from a rabbit that was...

Young mathematicians explore the maximun area for patio with the added complexity of finding the mimimum cost for construction. First, they maximize the area of a yard given a limited amount of fence and  plot width v. area on a...

Students study the principle of design 'Emphasis' through class participation, a PowerPoint presentation, and a portfolio assignment. They add a page discussing emphasis to their professional portfolio and demonstrate knowledge of the...

Pupils compare/contrast the Afro-American and Puerto Rican experience as they migrated and assimilated in the U.S. They research and discuss the reasons for migration and the historical significance of economic autonomy and oppression.

  Students practice measurement.  In this fractions instructional activity, 6th graders measure volume of a liquid, e.g. 1/5 liter, and learn the vocabulary of fractions (numerator, denominator). Students solve sample problems...

Students investigate the use of multiplication and division of whole numbers to solve problems including equivalent ratios and rates.

Students read a variety of short stories that focus on teenage protagonists. In groups, they answer comprehension questions and discuss the characters and setting for each story. Individually, they choose one writing assignment to...