This experimental unit on death employs a cross-cultural comparison of death and burial customs to increase student understanding of the values and reasons behind events surrounding the end of the life cycle. Nine activities are presented in which students collect, label, analyze, and generalize about the relationship of death customs to the…

This unit examines four topic areas related to police: rules and enforcement, police discretion, variety of police tasks, and police differences among societies as products of certain social pressures. High-school students learn about the police as an institution that responds to social and historical pressures. Students study police systems in…

Fourteen teachers from four California school districts developed this practical guide for teachers faced with a growing number of adult nonliterate students in English-as-a-Second-Language (ESL) programs. The guide is organized as follows: student goals and objectives, student characteristics, student identification, classroom activities,…

Showing a variety of learned behavior about aging, activities in this unit are designed to help high-school students become aware that their views (preconceptions) on aging are not universally held. Objectives of the unit include achievement of global perspective on aging and its problems, understanding of the effects of population growth and…

In this unit, high-school students identify and evaluate their own images of the Arabs and begin to develop more accurate perceptions of the Arabs through data analysis. Activities emphasize social studies skills, such as mapmaking and reading, use of time lines and the concept of chronology, and data collection and analysis. Students compare…

This instructional unit offers high-school students experiences in learning about how human beings communicate and fail to communicate. It is based on the assumption that personal and cultural differences create differing "perceptual sets." Seventeen learning activities are grouped into four units: (1) Communication Processes and "Meaning-Making,"…

This module is an introduction to traditional mathematics in Africa. A lesson plan is presented which explores the significance of words in the African number systems and compares them to American mathematical systems. Number words in four African languages are given as examples to illustrate base 5, 10, and 20 systems. Some words have been…

This experimental unit on modernization will involve secondary students in researching and developing a 50-nation data bank from which they are asked to make cross-cultural comparisons and analyses. Students infer some of the consequences of economic development on social and political life in a modernizing society, apply the concept of…

This instructional unit contains four classroom lessons dealing with energy for use in grades six and seven. The overall objective is to provide students with a comparative overview of two basic energy concepts: energy is a basic need in all cultures; and energy use affects the way people live. In the lessons, which can easily be integrated into…

This unit explores the roles of women today and the possible effects of social, political, and economic equality for women on students' personal lives, the nation, and the world. Thirteen activities are designed to help secondary students develop an understanding of the status of women in U.S. society as compared with other cultures. These…