Biodiversity is essential for every habitat, but many species are at risk due to pollution and other factors. Explore several different species native to Illinois in a gallery walk with posters that learners have created after research...

Plankton: so much more than just a SpongeBob character. Three different activities have kids looking at both phytoplankton and zooplankton in pictures, as well as collecting their own samples (depending on your access to a saltwater...

Industrialization and mechanization of products such as cars have deeply affected the US economy. The class discusses the affects of Ford's assembly line production of automobiles. They watch a video, fill out worksheets, and investigate...

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...

What happens next? Work on story sequence with a lesson that prompts kids to put a story back in order. Additionally, they discuss what would happen if one event was missing from the sequence.

How does the dirt get out of your drinking water? A hands-on activity introduces the use of flocculants to help clear solid particles out of water. The plan walks learners through the process of setting up an experiment that...

What should be the role of the federal government during an economic crisis? That is the question at the center of this introduction to a study of the New Deal. Class members examine letters to the state government asking for help,...

To demonstrate their understanding of the steps Alabama took to become a state, groups create a poster that identifies what the United States Constitution and the Northwest Ordinance required of a territory to become a state.

The tenant farming and sharecropping systems that developed in the South after the Civil War, the reasons for their development, and the eventual decline of these systems are the focus of this two-day plan.

"We, the People of the State of Alabama. . ." Did you know that the Alabama State Constitution has 357,157 words while the US Constitution has only 4,400? And that it has 798 amendments while the US Constitution has...

The era after the Civil War saw a flourishing of African Americans exercising their rights. Using graphic organizers and Internet research, pupils consider the legacy of Benjamin Sterling Turner, who sat in Congress. Afterward, they...

The release of Martin Luther King, Jr. from the Birmingham jail, the Children's March, and the bombings of the Gaston Motel and the home of Reverend A.D. King's home. As part of a study of the civil rights movement, class members...

As part of a study of the 1963 quest for civil rights in Birmingham, Alabama, class members view a PowerPoint that details the struggle and analyze Martin Luther King, Jr.'s "Letter from a Birmingham Jail."

Planes, trains, and automobiles. How many ways to travel are there? Scholars learn about modes of transportation in the past and how they have changed over time. Budding historians view a timeline, participate in group discussion, and...

The Clotilde was the last known ship to bring slaves from Africa to the United States - good riddance! Dive into the details of the ship, its cargo, origin, and route, and learn about the future of the Africans on board...

Introduce a study of the presidency of Andrew Jackson with a lesson that uses video clips, primary source documents, group activities, and debates to examine Jackson's early life and career. The lesson focuses on the 1828 election and...

Take a step into the virtual farm world and explore the impact farming has on our everyday eating habits. Future farmers discover the meaning of agriculture and the hard work that goes into providing food for us to enjoy. A computer...

With a discussion and a brief film, introduce populations. Using paper fish models, your class participates in a simulation in which they survey numbers of fish. As a class, they tally up the different types. The challenge with this...

Prior to class, individuals visit the Department of Energy website to examine the process of refining oil. After discussing what they learned, they find the Gulf of Mexico on a richly illustrated map that specifically indicates...

Are you looking for lab sheets to go with your class experiment on plant response to light? You are no longer in the dark! This is a lesson that was written for a unit on light, but could easily be used to demonstrate plant behaviors in...

Explore the countries involved in World War II. Pupils find information about what these countries were like before the war. Who was the leader of each country? What issues, concerns, and goals were important in 1938? They fill in their...

What was the Truman administration's position on foreign policy during the Cold War? Class members respond to an excerpt from President Harry S. Truman's "Truman Doctrine" with three questions in the space provided.

Cover one-point perspective through observation and practice. Class members examine several works of art that use one-point perspective, look at magazine images to find the vanishing points and horizon lines, and draw their own city...

Play with dimensions and practice making a two-dimensional scene look three-dimensional. Class members view pieces of art and then make their own scenes by layering different materials and drawing in details. Check out all the tabs for...