This lesson focuses on how students can learn basic blues percussion patterns by considering the polyrhythms of African drumming and investigating how and why such drums were banned during slavery. Students will listen to several blues...

Fifth graders play a game to practice all of the strategies for multiplication they have memorized.

Eighth graders construct various machines and compare the work done by them.

Learners describe in words and graphic displays the elevation or depression profile of sections of Mars' Olympus Mons and/or Valles Marineris. They explain how orbiting spacecraft build up global maps one data slice at a time.

Learners define pitch, measure varying amounts of water into containers, make predictions about the sounds made when striking the containers, put containers in order from highest to lowest pitch, and create their own sound patterns with...

Students extend linear and directional patterns, identify patterns in classroom and community environments, create original patterns incorporating the senses of sight and sound, and operate video and recording equipment.

Fourth graders read a Cherokee myth about the origin of strawberries. After reading the story, they add another chapter to it and read their additions to the class. Or, as a group activity, they each write a few sentences and then pass...

Learners examine the meaning of genre, and specifically investigate the musical genre of grunge. They view and discuss photos, watch the video, "VH1 Storytellers: Pearl Jam," answer discussion questions, and paraphrase the lyrics to a...

Learners work to increase the intensity of a light bulb by testing batteries in series and parallel circuits. They analyze Ohm's Law, power, parallel and series circuits, and ways to measure voltage and current.

Students explore history through a tour of a local cemetery. Students investigate tombstones for historical information, make stone rubbings, and use this secondary source reference to obtain primary sources.

Students explore development of jazz music in the 1930s by forming imaginary jazz bands which tour several cities in Depression-era America. Jazz band members create imaginary identities for themselves, develop publicity for their tour,...

Students analyze the impact of jazz on the novel, "Invisible Man," by Ralph Ellison. They read and discuss excerpts of the novel, write an essay on the influence of jazz on Ralph Ellison as a writer, and view video excerpts on jazz...

Students examine the craft of cartography and how the Lewis and Clark expedition created and used maps. They analyze maps, read a handout, create a map, participate in a mini expedition and map out a route based on travel directions,...

Students use a microscope in a series of activities that are designed to help them explore the "invisible world" and make meaningful microscopic discoveries and learn the importance of the microscope as a tool in science and research.

Young scholars improvise then compose and notate melodies with appropriate accompaniments that are inspired by events that transpired during their summer vacations. Requires a networked keyboard lab.

Students demonstrate intonation and their ability to discriminate between sharp and flat by responding to exercises within Auralia, and by creating their own examples for the class using the Tuning Function on the synthesizer. Requires a...

Students demonstrate the structure of a canon by composing melodies and variations over Pachelbel's Theme from the Canon in D. Requires a networked keyboard lab and computers.

Young scholars perform an experiment with different types of bird eggs to determine what factors make them strong and able to stay on a cliff without rolling off.

Students read the story "Weslandia" by Paul Fleischman, define the term microclimate, gather and record data in various places on school grounds to establish the presence of difference microclimates, analyze and compare microclimates,...

Students define and discuss colonialism and self-determination. After reading the European's view on the topic, they analyze a map of imperialism in 1914. They watch excerpts of a video and take notes on various United Nations...

Students examine how visual and literary images played an important role in the English colonization of Virginia. They analyze the importance of Thomas Harriot's Report on the subsequent development of English colonial plans for...

Students evaluate their school's human rights climate using criteria derived from the universal Declaration of Human Rights. They identify areas of particular concern and develop an action plan to begin addressing the issues.

Students review the meaning and application of primary and secondary sources in research. They determine how researchers locate primary source documents before looking at signatures as a validating factor on many primary sources....

Students discuss the salt marsh. They define the following terms: habitat, water, land and air. Students work in small groups. They are asked why are they going to a salt marsh? Students discuss whose habitat is it at the salt marsh.