This paper explores Computational Thinking (CT) through the experiences and interactions of sixth-grade students as they were engaging in a science lesson utilizing robotics. This robotics unit institutes the shifting from traditional to engaging hands-on activities coupled with CT skills that are exciting, intriguing, and inviting to students.…

This research study explored robotics as the catalyst for computational thinking (CT) by sixth-grade students as they are engaged in a science lesson. The interactions, understandings, and applications are discussed, along with the participants' connections and implementations of CT concepts (decomposition, abstraction, pattern recognition, and…

This article describes a collaborative learning experience in experimental design that closely approximates what practicing statisticians and researchers in applied science experience during consulting. Statistics majors worked with a teaching assistant from the chemistry department to conduct a series of experiments characterizing the variation…

How many technology teachers reflect on their teaching each and every day? How many technology teachers ask themselves the hard questions surrounding student learning and their own teaching? How many technology teachers ask their students for feedback on a daily basis? In this article, the author shares her personal story about reflective…

This unit was designed to encourage students to identify and analyze local, national, and global environmental problems. The emphasis of the unit is on the cause-effect relationship humans have with the environment. It is made up of four sections of learning activities and suggestions, one for each of the core disciplines: language arts, social…

Emphasizing writing and student inquiry, this rich collection offers teachers ready-to-use classroom resources with a sound basis in best practice. Student engagement with community becomes the centerpiece of the book, an engagement that takes place across disciplines through projects involving history, environment, culture, and much more. Editors…

Describes how incorporating an acting unit into traditional English courses allows students to act out the language, the plot, and the moral and social issues of a play. Offers teaching suggestions and class exercises and activities. (SR)

Described is a newspaper project in which elementary students report life as it was in the Middle Ages. Students are involved in a variety of language-centered activities. For example, they gather and evaluate information about medieval times and write, edit, and proofread articles for the newspaper. (RM)

This paper explores the use of conceptual themes as a framework for interdisciplinary studies with gifted students. Describes sample themes and suggested student products, as well as guidelines for brainstorming, planning activities, facilitating production, and evaluating student products. (PB)

Describes a number of class activities and student projects that the authors have used to teach the language and literature of peace in seventh- and eighth-grade reading and language arts classes, via theme-based units, interdisciplinary projects, and original theatrical student productions that celebrate language and literacy through the arts.…

With this book as a guide, elementary school teachers can build classroom themes that offer students substantive encounters with knowledge, literature, and language. The book discusses a rationale for theme teaching; an explanation of the different kinds of themes; a variety of ways in which themes can be treated in the classroom; a detailed…

Describes teaching a Shakespearean play ("Macbeth") to eighth and ninth graders with learning difficulties. Describes combining a scaffolded reading experience with an interdisciplinary unit approach to maximize student engagement and success. (SR)

The Global Rivers Environmental Education Network (GREEN) watershed education program is unique from other water monitoring programs because it emphasizes action-oriented and problem-solving approaches based on an interdisciplinary education and extensive networking with others traveling down a similar path. This sourcebook offers guidance based…

This paper describes "The Huck Finn Experience," a high motivation interdisciplinary unit that takes students on a 6-week journey back to the life and times of Mark Twain through the fictional character of Huckleberry Finn. The unit described in the paper was designed for eighth-grade students but could be easily adapted to be successful…

This publication, the first in a series of seven, for elementary schools, is an environmental education curriculum guide with a focus on waste management issues. It presents a unit of exercises selected for kindergarten students to introduce the ideas of natural and man-made objects in the environment and the topics of waste and litter. Litter is…