Students take their ideas from the classroom page to the community pavement when they participate in a service-learning project based on their multimedia presentations.

This kit provides teachers and other educators with the materials to help young children begin to understand the purpose of TV commercials (and advertising in general) in terms of selling intent, and to recognize the types of tricks that advertisers may use to make products look better than they really are. Specific lessons focus on foods groups and misleading nutritional messages commonly found in children's TV commercials, especially the "complete breakfast shot" and highly sugared pseudo-fruit snacks and beverages. Lessons are designed to address developmentally appropriate health standards, and many different commercials are provided so that children can discuss and practice what they have learned.

Huckleberry Finn opens with a warning from its author that misinterpreting readers will be shot. Despite the danger, readers have been approaching the novel from such diverse critical perspectives for 120 years that it is both commonly taught and frequently banned, for a variety of reasons. Studying both the novel and its critics with an emphasis on cultural context will help students develop analytical tools essential for navigating this work and other American controversies. This lesson asks students to combine internet historical research with critical reading. Then students will produce several writing assignments exploring what readers see in Huckleberry Finn and why they see it that way.

The Plant Breeding E-Learning in Africa (PBEA) e-modules were originally developed as part of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Contract No. 24576. Building on Iowa State University’s expertise with online plant breeding education, the PBEA e-modules were developed for use in curricula to train African students in the management of crop breeding programs for public, local, and international organizations. The authors of this textbook series adapted and built upon the PBEA modules to develop a series of textbooks covering individual topic areas. It is our hope that this project will facilitate wider dissemination and reuse of the PBEA modules’ content.
Crop Genetics provides an introduction to the genetic concepts of reproductive systems, recombination, mutation, segregation and linkage analysis, inbreeding, quantitative inheritance, fertility regulation, population genetics and polyploidy.

Students explore the idea of ńcrossing boundariesî through bilingual, spoken-word poetry, culminating in a poetry slam at school or in the community.

This unit is about the role of the curator in the art world and their power to confer value and legitimacy within a culture. The intended audience for this unit is a high school entry level art class entitled Exploring Visual Design taken by all high school grade levels. The goal of the unit will ultimately be to address Anchor Standard 6 in the National Core Art Standards by asking students to curate their own art exhibit that communicates a message and conveys meaning to their intended audience. Along the way, students will also explore themes of identity, community and representation as they prepare for their role as curator.

The DISCOVER-AQ curriculum integrates real-word research with real-life learning to answer the question: What are the causes and effects of air quality issues and how do they affect human health and the environment?

Through eight lessons, students are introduced to many facets of dams, including their basic components, the common types (all designed to resist strong forces), their primary benefits (electricity generation, water supply, flood control, irrigation, recreation), and their importance (historically, currently and globally). Through an introduction to kinetic and potential energy, students come to understand how dams generate electricity. They learn about the structure, function and purpose of locks, which involves an introduction to Pascal's law, water pressure and gravity. Other lessons introduce students to common environmental impacts of dams and the engineering approaches to address them. They learn about the life cycle of salmon and the many engineered dam structures that aid in their river passage, as they think of their own methods and devices that could help fish migrate past dams. Students learn how dams and reservoirs become part of the Earth's hydrologic cycle, focusing on the role of evaporation. To conclude, students learn that dams do not last forever; they require ongoing maintenance, occasionally fail or succumb to "old age," or are no longer needed, and are sometimes removed. Through associated hands-on activities, students track their personal water usage; use clay and plastic containers to model and test four types of dam structures; use paper cups and water to learn about water pressure and Pascal's Law; explore kinetic energy by creating their own experimental waterwheel from two-liter plastic bottles; collect and count a stream's insects to gauge its health; play an animated PowerPoint game to quiz their understanding of the salmon life cycle and fish ladders; run a weeklong experiment to measure water evaporation and graph their data; and research eight dams to find out and compare their original purposes, current status, reservoir capacity and lifespan. Woven throughout the unit is a continuing hypothetical scenario in which students act as consulting engineers with a Splash Engineering firm, assisting Thirsty County in designing a dam for Birdseye River.

This unit is an EQuIP Exemplar for adult education (http://achieve.org/equip). Students will connect their prior, real-world knowledge to the concept of order in mathematics. They will go through a discovery process with content that will build a deep, conceptual understanding of the properties of operations to explain why we perform operations in a certain order when we see just the naked numbers.

Students explore the genre of posters, review informational writing and visual design, and then design poster presentations to share in class or at a school-wide fair.

Using "The Grapes of Wrath" as a backdrop, students conduct research on issues that the novel addresses, publishing their findings in a multigenre museum exhibit.

Lights, camera, action, and a bit of mystery! In this lesson, students use mystery props in a skit bag to create and perform in short, impromptu skits.

Students compare the traits fact and fiction by using a Venn diagram to compare fiction and nonfiction books about Native Americans.

Geographic information systems (GIS), once used predominantly by experts in cartography and computer programming, have become pervasive in everyday business and consumer use. This unit explores GIS in general as a technology about which much more can be learned, and it also explores applications of that technology. Students experience GIS technology through the use of Google Earth on the environmental topic of plastics in the ocean in an area known as the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. The use of this topic in GIS makes the unit multidisciplinary, incorporating the physics of ocean currents, the chemistry associated with pollutant degradation and chemical sorption to organic-rich plastics, and ecological impact to aquatic biota.

Striking images can leave lasting impressions on viewers. In this lesson, students make text-self-world connections to a nature- or science-related topic as they collaboratively design a multimedia presentation.

Learn about Greek gods, heroes, and creatures through digital storytelling produced by students who have learned research techniques.

Students learn about memory by doing a memory-writing exercise, studying the brain to understand how it affects memory, reading Li-Young Lee's poem "Mnemonic," and creating projects to demonstrate their understanding.

Students will learn the potential costs and benefits of social media, digital consumption, and our relationship with technology as a society in the three-week lesson. This inquiry based unit of study will answer the following questions:

Essential Question: How can we use science fiction’s ability to predict the future to help humanity?

Supportive Questions 1: What predictions of future development has science fiction accurately made in the past? This can include technology, privacy, medicine, social justice, political, environmental, education, and economic.

Supportive Question 2: What predictions for future development in contemporary science fiction are positive for the future of humanity? What factors need to begin in your lifetime to make these predictions reality?

Supportive Question 3: What predictions for future development in contemporary science fiction are negative for the future of humanity? What factors need to begin in your lifetime to stop these negative outcomes?

Douglas County Colorado presents a virtual museum showcasing the history of the Douglas, County Colorado Region including Castle Rock, Aurora, and Highlands Ranch.

Free online Earth and Space Science Textbook by Jeffrey Bennett. Jeffrey Bennett holds a B.A. in Biophysics from the University of California at San Diego and an M.S. and Ph.D. in Astrophysics from the University of Colorado at Boulder. He specializes in mathematics and science education, writing for and speaking to audiences ranging from elementary school children to college faculty. He is a well known author of science textbooks and children's books. Promo: Are you satisfied with your textbook for Earth and Space Science? We didn’t think so. Now,
imagine an online “textbook” that
• contains everything you need to teach your course, including activities and assessments, and
resources to help you meet the needs of students with varying levels of background.
• meets all your state and NGSS standards for middle school Earth and Space Science, and can
also be used for many high school courses.
• is fully up-to-date with the latest science, all presented in an engaging and scientifically
accurate manner.
• is designed for a course that is “teacher driven” and that can be used in person, online, or
even for independent learning.
• is filled with extensive Teacher Notes that will help you both to effectively engage your
students and to understand subtleties of the science for yourself.
• is written by the award-winning author of college textbooks in four subjects (astronomy,
astrobiology, mathematics, and statistics) and of numerous science books for the public,
including 6 children’s books that have all been read from orbit on the International Space
Station for the Story Time From Space Program
• and it is completely FREE, posted to a web site online.
Now you can stop imagining, because this “textbook” is here and ready for you to use!
Explore it at www.grade8science.com, use it with your students, and share it with
others. You may send feedback direct to the author at jeff@bigkidscience.com.