In six sites across the United States teams of teachers began creating "portfolio cultures"--classrooms where growth towards high common standards and reflection was emphasized for both students and teachers. Working groups of teachers became involved in a 2-year process to develop curriculum. This book is a part of this series…

High quality African American literature exposes young children to accurate and realistic images of Black people and can be used to enhance any early childhood education program. This bibliography annotates over 40 examples of African-American children's literature for use with young children. The selections are a combination of poetry and fiction…

This book is a collaborative project between the National Aeronautics Space Administration (NASA) and the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM). It has two complementary goals: to provide classroom-tested lessons that effectively model the vision of the NCTM Standards and to focus on the exciting problems that arise out of NASA's…

This book identifies more than 650 Internet and World Wide Web sites across the K-12 curriculum that can benefit teachers who may not have time to carry out lengthy searches themselves. The Web sites in this book are organized alphabetically by the following K-12 subject areas: art, bilingual education, drama, ESL, foreign language, health…

The Statue of Liberty, which stands in Upper New York Bay, is a universal symbol of freedom. A gift from France, it originally was conceived as an emblem of the friendship between the people of France and the United States. It has become much more, symbolizing the Mother of Exiles, greeting the millions of immigrants and embodying hope and…

In the absence of official power, women had to find other ways to shape the world in which they lived. The First Ladies of the United States were among the women who were able to play "a significant role in shaping the political and social history of the country, impacting virtually every topic that has been debated." Through this lesson…

The three guides in the new Information Literacy Toolkit Series can help school library media specialists and teachers to promote and teach information literacy skills to young library users and to: collaborate in curriculum planning so that students will develop a cohesive skill set; teach the critical thinking and problem-solving skills that…

In this lesson, students compare imagined travel experiences of their own with the actual experiences of 19th-century pioneers. To learn about the experiences of the emigrants who traveled the Oregon Trial, the lesson asks students to create, as a class, oral stories about contemporary cross-country journeys; they then create works of historical…

This book is a manual that enables teachers to formulate an effective program of environmental education across multiple grade levels and cultural settings. A section provides tips for using the book, followed by nine chapters dealing with different aspects of developing and implementing an environmental education program. Chapter 1 presents a…

This activity is designed to teach about topographic maps and bathymetric charts. Students are expected to create a topographic map from a model landform, interpret a simple topographic map, and explain the difference between topographic and bathymetric maps. The activity provides learning objectives, a list of needed materials, key vocabulary…

This activity introduces students to the basic concept of seafloor spreading, the processes involved in creating new seafloor at a mid- ocean ridge, the Galapagos Spreading Center system, and the different types of plate motion associated with ridge segments and transform faults. The activity provides learning objectives, a list of needed…

This guide offers teaching models based on the theory of multiple intelligences (MI) and applies these models to the design of lessons that address the unique learning needs of all students. The first chapter makes the case for integrating MI into the curriculum. The second chapter describes the capacities of the various intelligences. Chapters 3…

This curriculum unit introduces intermediate grade and middle school students to the work of Stephen Sondheim, one of the most talented composers of the contemporary American musical theater, and teaches them about the process of writing an original musical. The unit notes that in his musical "Into the Woods" Sondheim incorporates (and…

The electronic text program described in this lesson plan guides students to compare and contrast the characteristics of electronic text with the characteristics of traditionally printed text, gaining a deeper understanding of how to navigate and comprehend information found on the Internet. During a 30 minute and a 45 minutes lesson, students…

The writing and art program described in this lesson plan has middle school students examine a work of art of their choice to discern purpose, audience, form and function and use transitional and comparative vocabulary to discuss similarities between writing and painting an idea or story. During the three 50-minute lessons, students will…