This lesson plan introduces seventh-ninth graders to Frank Lloyd Wright and shows how nature influenced and inspired the design of his home and studio. Students will: identify natural design elements from the house, apply their awareness of form to their own natural and built environment, and create designs based on natural forms they find…

Provides a lesson that examines cultural naming patterns in China as a means of drawing students into the study of that culture. Suggests that naming patterns are important in revealing similarities and differences in social and political attitudes and encourages students to develop new perspectives toward other cultures. (KO)

"Using Geography to Teach Comparative Values: Japan and the United States" (H. Flater) uses baseball to introduce junior high students to basic differences in the way various cultures view similar events. "Defining Directionality: Early Learning Experiences that Teach Concepts in a Pragmatic and Engaging Format" (C. Grace ; M.…

By giving teachers control over improving the curriculum, an Idaho school system has created a systemwide syllabus that guides each teacher in each subject and grade. (MLF)

Presents a secondary education geography lesson plan for teaching the theme of place and relative location. Provides samples of student materials. Using Japan as an example, shows how place and relative location can be used to study a country. (KO)

From an ethnographic perspective, "procedural display" is defined and discussed. Two lesson transcripts help to analyze procedural display. (32 references) (SI)

Contains six short descriptions of lesson plans that teachers have found effective in a range of areas: (1) first day confidence building; (2) innovative lessons in punctuation; (3) approaches to teaching the comparison/contrast papers; (4) writing about possible careers; (5) student presentations designed to make literature come alive; (6)…

Lists Internet resources for teachers and school library media specialists. Resources are divided into three sections: one describes and evaluates listservs for elementary and secondary educators; one includes text files of lesson plans and technology plans; and one includes gophers and World Wide Web sites. (Author/LRW)

Presents a lesson plan that uses information about traditional African iron-smelting to highlight the scientific contributions of non-European cultures. Includes a laboratory activity on the reduction of metal oxides with a multicultural perspective that helps students grasp some of the chemistry concepts involved in smelting. (JRH)

Gives a lesson plan for a mathematics activity using balloons which shows connections between the algebraic concepts of slope, linear functions, and power functions and the geometric concepts of circle, sphere, volume, and pi. Includes reproducible student worksheets. (MKR)

Presents an activity in which students draw a picture, analyze each line and curve, and write the symbolic equations represented by the graph. Includes reproducible student worksheets. (MKR)

Presents five lessons to demonstrate how graphing calculators can be used to teach the slope-intercept concept of linear equations and to establish more general principles about two-dimensional graphs. Contains a reproducible student quiz. (MKR)

Presents activities that use physical models to help students see the natural progression for steps in mathematical induction. Contains reproducible student worksheets. (MKR)

Presents an activity to construct a tester for electrical resistors. Contains discussion questions, extensions, curriculum correlations to health and art, and home links. Includes a reproducible student worksheet. (MKR)

Reports on a refresher training program that introduces experienced physics teachers to a reflective lesson-planning model and a more constructivist approach to physics teaching. Three instructional strategies developed by participants in the program and the corresponding suggestions made by their peers are presented and analyzed. (29 references)…