To review and pre-teach content material, this fun and engaging 100th Day of School activity is a great way to get students interested in the major historical events of the last 100 years. To begin the activity, the teacher will either write on the whiteboard or announce that today the class is going to assume the role of Historical Investigators, revealing the most exciting events in history over the last 100 years. The teacher will then group the students into groups of 2-4 based on the class size. The teacher will pass out the investigation sheet, and direct students to open the Google Slide presentation. The teacher will model how to select and research a given historical event using credible sources. 

The annual Elie Wiesel Writing and Visuals Arts Competition is open to students in grades 6 through 12 and serves to inspire middle and high school students and teachers to learn more about the Holocaust, racism, bigotry, and the dangers of prejudice. The questions posed each year guide students to explore the lessons of the Holocaust while examining contemporary issues such as bullying, peer pressure, unthinking obedience to authority, and indifference.

Get a Job! Students will use their persuasive messaging skills to research and promote various computer science fields in the unit.

Information Technology is a broad field to learn about. Within IT there are many careers. This lesson is designed to help engage the students in the IT field where they will be able to research and discover various jobs they are interested in. Students will discover the education requirments, possible benefits of different jobs, salary, hiring demad, and growth potential in the field.The activities include: brainstorming, compare and contrast, research, writing,  and using software either in Google or Microsoft.

Your task as an astronomer is to model the solar system using technology.  You and your crew are just one group that have been asked by NASA to chart the solar system in order to create a simulation model for future astronauts. After you have accomplished this, you will present your model to the Director of NASA. They have given you several requirements for the simulation. Your simulation should include a map of the solar system that shows the appropriate distance, location, size and relation to the sun amongst the eight planets. You and your team can use a variety of options to complete your simulation. These include Google Suite tools (such as Google Slides, Google Docs, Jamboard, or any equivalent tool such as Microsoft Office), Coding resources (Scratch.edu, tynker.edu) or 3D printing software (Tinkercad) to present. Your map should also include a short descriptive paragraph for each planet explaining its distance, location, size, and at least 3 facts about the planet. If creating a video, you will still want to include descriptions for the planets as well as the three facts.  Presentation to “NASA Directors” must answer the question: how does this simulation/model help future scientists?

In this biography-based unit, second graders explore biographies of famous leaders and change agents. The unit has three main sections. In the first section students research and learn about people who have changed the world by inventing things. In this section students will explore the ways in which inventions can change the world and what it takes to turn an idea into action. In the second section students research and learn about people who have changed the world by standing up for what they believe in and fighting for what others think is impossible. In this section second graders explore the ways some leaders have persevered in the face of obstacles and stood up for themselves or ideas when many had stopped believing in them. In the third section students research and learn about people who have changed the world by making the world and environment a better place for everyone. In each of the sections, students read biographies that expose them to a wide variety of themes, content, and history. It is incredibly important that the necessary framing is done prior to reading a text so that students can deeply engage with the biographies and fully understand the challenges and successes of the different people being studied. Without framing or context, students may miss why each person's actions are inspirational. It is our hope that this unit will open students' eyes to the multitude of ways in which a person, regardless of race or gender, can influence and inspire change.

For readers, this unit is a combination of read-aloud and shared reading. At this point in the year second graders have been exposed to almost all of the high-frequency informational reading standards; therefore, this unit is a chance to review some standards and skills students need to practice. Two new standards that are a focus in this unit, however, are describing how reasons support particular points the author makes in a text and also comparing and contrasting the most important points presented by two texts on the same topic. Compare and contrast in this unit should go deeper than text features and structures. Although students can note differences in text features, the main focus should be on comparing and contrasting the different points and the reasons the authors use to support the points in two texts about the same person.

Allow students the opportunity to explore their career goals! This activity will allow them to develop their research skills and provide a hands-on experience to help stretch their perspective. Let your students guide themselves into discovering new career path options!

This video is part of the Continue to Know with WHRO TV series. Watch Tiffany Hale teach about credible resources and effective research.

English Instructional Plan – Crowd Sourcing False Premise Analysis and Rewriting for Clarity 

This is a collaborative task that can be modified to be accomplished by students in both the face to face and the virtual environment.  The task involves researching chronic medical conditions and evaluating data provided in a case study in order to make conclusions about potential disease diagnosis, prognosis, and treatment.

Check out how a Science 6 CLT from Arlington, Virginia partnered with the school librarian, resource teacher for the gifted (RTG), SPED teacher, and English Learner (EL) teachers to engage and support all students in a personal research project...remotely!  We are sharing our project resources, experiences, and how this project personalizes distance learning.

This jigsaw activity introduces students with Arctic weather data using a role-playing activity that has students read and interpret graphs while considering the optimal time to plan a research mission to the Arctic.

In this science-based unit, students explore the world of energy. In the first half of the unit students learn what energy is, the different ways that energy is transferred from place to place, and the ways energy can be converted from one type to another. In the second half of the unit students explore the pros and cons of different types of renewable and nonrenewable energy. After learning about the different types of energy, students will grapple with what the world's energy future will look like if more renewable solutions aren't found, particularly in their communities. Through a combination of reading and research, it is our hope that students begin to build a deeper understanding of energy and its influence on our lives.

This unit builds on to the informational reading skills and strategies developed in previous units. At this point in the year we assume that students are able to actively read and annotate informational texts in order to build understanding of a topic. Therefore, the focus of this unit is on refining students' ability to use different strategies to comprehend denser scientific texts. In particular, students will continue working on determining the main idea, summarizing key details, explaining cause and effect, using text features to improve understanding, and explaining how an author uses text features to elaborate on key concepts and ideas.

Students will find, evaluate, and select credible sources to create a research product.

In this activity, students use authentic Arctic climate data to explore albedo and its relationship to seasonal snowmelt as a self-reinforcing feedback mechanism, which is then applied to large scale global climate change.

This activity introduces students to the Arctic and Arctic climate. Through a virtual exploration of the geography of the Arctic students become familiar with the region. They are then introduced to meteorological parameters that Arctic research teams use.