Take young geologists on an exploration of the rock cycle with this six-lesson earth science unit on rocks and minerals. Through a series of discussions, demonstrations, and hands-on investigations your class will learn...

Despite the slightly off-putting title, the instructions and activities detailed in these project guidelines for researching a noteworthy figure will serve as a fantastic supplement to your next famous person research...

Thor, Loki, Iron Man, and Captain America. As part of their study of Greek and Roman gods and heroes, middle schoolers compare the characters in The Avengers to Greek counterparts. Individuals then create their own superhero,...

Geometry students will be ecstatic about these engaging and enlightening end-of-the-year projects! Types of project ideas include interviewing a geometer, an ABCs of geometry poster, an engineering lab report, and origami work. 

Bring history to life for your young scholars with a Fourth of July lesson series. After a class reading of the Declaration of Independence, students translate this pivotal document into layman's terms before working in small...

Incorporate technology into a literature lesson plan with an innovative language arts lesson plan. Middle schoolers read an electronic version of original stories or fairy tales, and after determining the point of view, rewrite the...

Cinderella is a classic love story when Cinderella is the protagonist—but what happens if a stepsister tells the story? Focus on point of view with a lesson about fairy tales and story elements. After reading a few familiar fairy tales,...

Agriculture, deforestation, and urbanization. How have human's changed the planet and how might we mitigate the effects of human activity on the planet? To answer these questions class members research the changes in human land use from...

S.E. Hinton's The Outsiders is the anchor text in a unit that asks readers to reflect on their own identity, their place in their family, in groups with which they identify, and in school. 

Class members choose a current social, political, environmental, or economic problem presented in Tyson Miller's Dream of a Nation: Inspiring Ideas for a Better America, research this problem and a variety of suggested solutions, before...

Encourage your young citizens to make a difference. Using Tyson Miller's Dream of a Nation: Inspiring Ideas for a Better America as a starting point, class members watch documentaries, investigate issues, and then write letters to...

Should junk food be banned in schools? Should the US open its borders to all immigrants? Should the US impose term limits for the House of Representatives and for the Senate? Using Tyson Miller's Dream of a Nation: Inspiring Ideas...

After completing Juliet Marillier's young adult novel Wildwood Dancing, class members rewrite a traditional fairy tale, making three significant changes to illustrate a theme of their choosing.

Slavery in India, Sudan, and Mauritania? What about in the United States? Groups research modern slavery in these four countries, collecting factual evidence (What), determine their feelings about this evidence (So what),...

Speaking of the Internet. The culminating lesson for the unit on the Internet challenges pupils to prepare short, two-minute speeches on an issue facing society. The pupils chose from three topics that connect the Internet and...

Don't use an average resource ... use this one. As a middle school assessment task, learners first determine mean, median, and mode of salaries given in a frequency table. They then investigate how a change in one value changes the...

As a middle school assessment task, learners first examine line graphs of monthly temperatures for two locations, and then match box plots to each line plot.

Action is the heart of change. Encourage class members to not only identify critical social justice issues in their school or community but to take action as well. As individuals or as groups, they research a situation, develop a...

This is not your ordinary farm! Using a case study, small groups study two proposed locations for a wind farm. After researching all the information about the sites, the groups choose a site. Each team member writes up the proposal...

Looking for performance tasks to incorporate into your units? With its flexibility, this resource is sure to fit your teaching needs. Use this module as a complete assessment of graphing linear scenarios and polynomial operations, or...

Pupils try to get a collar on temperature with a short assessment item that asks them to compare two different methods in converting Celsius to Fahrenheit. Individuals try to find out when an estimation provides conversions that are...

There is often more to data than meets the eye. Scholars learn that they need to analyze data before making conclusions as they look at data that describes the number of candy bars boys and girls eat. They disprove a given conclusion and...

Emanuel Leutze's painting Washington Crossing the Delaware. Alexander Gardner's photograph of Abraham Lincoln. What do these works of art tell us about the character of these American Presidents? After examining the techniques the...

Class members take center stage as groups perform scenes from Ian Doescher's William Shakespeare's Star Wars: Verily, A New Hope. Actors are encouraged to add stage directions to the script, as well as create costumes and props to...