Students learn about organic gardening by developing their own research questions, conducting research, gardening at their school, creating signs about their plants, and presenting their research to the class.

For 30 years, Afghanistan has been at the center of armed conflict, from the Soviet-Afghan War beginning in 1979 to the Taliban consolidation of power in the 1990s to the U.S.-led military intervention after September 11, 2001. How have Afghan people and leaders responded to events? The activities presented here provide students with a deeper look at what war has meant for Afghans Đ how they have lived, represented events, and attempted to rebuild their country. The monument of a tank in Herat with triumphant local soldiers offers a glimpse of both anti-Soviet and anti-Taliban feeling in one region of Afghanistan, and calls upon us to consider what messages monuments send. The trailer from the film Brewing Tea in a Kettle of War examines how the Provincial Reconstruction Team and the National Solidarity Program operated in Afghanistan and how reconstruction efforts are negotiated in the aftermath of conflict. The inclusion of weaponry and war motifs in women's traditional Afghan carpets shows how violence has permeated the society and even gained its own market niche. These sources bring us closer to Afghan perspectives on events than textbooks and news stories tend to do.

The #MyFoodChoice resource is an inquiry-based resource answering the overall question of "How can I make informed food choices?" This resources has videos, interactive student sheets, approved resources and more. It is aimed at grade 9-12 students in subjects such as science, food studies, English, agriculture, social studies, humanities to name a few.

Looking at interactions between North American natives and European settlers through primary sources offers us fresh and sometimes surprising insights into the fascinating exchanges that took place in early America as peoples encountered others who were different. It allows us to look beyond school textbook accounts of political and military conflicts or alliances to witness the plentiful cross-pollination between cultures. Indians and settlers were often intrigued by one anotherŐs ways, and open to adopting items, ideas and motifs that they found useful or pleasing. We see products of these encounters emerging that are hybrids of cultures Đ and are no less "authentically" Indian or colonial for being so. Examining remains of these interactions also helps us to dispel the seeming silence of native populations, as their words and ideas have been preserved in many forms. Texts, visual art, artifacts and physical structures all document ways that native peoples interacted with the Spanish, French and British in North America. They offer a richer and more complete story of what the encounters meant to the people involved, and give students a chance to explore those meanings for themselves.

In preparation for a school-wide celebration of Cambodian New Year, middle school students (Grade 5-8) will identify and record the big idea behind New Year's celebrations in Cambodia as well as in the United States. Students will compile facts about both celebrations.

"The Play for All resource has been developed to provide educators with access to resources to enhance their capacity to implement inclusive, meaningful, safe, and fun intramural programming that meets the needs of every student in the school community.  "

*Heath & PE Resources*
*Select activities from the left panel to find games
*Select your grade from the lower left panel to find health lessons, wellness resources, videos and more!

Much of the focus on modern Japan in U.S. curriculum is on Japan's role in World War II and/or on its status as an economic superpower by the 1980s. The steps along Japan's path from a defeated aggressor nation to a peace-oriented, prosperous power are less-noted, but essential for explaining Japan's transformation and the U.S.'s role in that process. One primary source activity in this cluster focuses on Japan's postwar identity as a "peace state," and how that identity was a product of Article 9 of the new Constitution created by Americans under General MacArthur. Japan's pacifism was undergirded by a strong U.S. military presence in Okinawa, a presence now increasingly challenged by Okinawans and other Japanese. The second activity uses photographs to explore the April 2010 Okinawan protests against the U.S. base at Futenma. A final source, the animated cartoon Sazae-san, looks at an aspect of Japanese cultural identity influenced by the U.S., specifically the Japanese celebration of Christmas in the postwar years. How the Japanese have thought about these changes Đ embracing certain roles and practices while questioning or rejecting others Đ is a main theme of this group of documents.

While many elementary and middle school educators teach their students about Africa, finding age-appropriate primary sources and related activities is often a challenge, particularly when looking at early African cultures. Many available lessons focus only on African works of art, such as masks, that are difficult for children in US classrooms to relate to their own lives and experiences, further solidifying the conception of an American "us" and a very different African "them." Others frame Africa as a monolithic culture frozen in time, ignoring the reality of this diverse and rapidly modernizing continent. Each of the primary sources and activities included in this cluster has been carefully chosen to serve four main purposes: to introduce students to a specific region of Africa and to the distinctive culture of the people who have inhabited it, to show how three unique African societies draw on their natural and human resources to store and communicate their histories and values, to explain how mnemonic devices created long ago still play a crucial role in many African societies, and to underscore the importance of cultural preservation across all societies and all times.

These pre-recorded videos will provide teachers with the framework needed to complete an inquiry-based project with their students.

There are videos for each of the grade groups: K-3, 4-6, 7-8, plus a video on teacher professional learning.

All of the primary and secondary sources used in this unit of study are part of the body of survival literature created by the Cambodian diaspora. The pieces reflect both the endurance of Khmer individuals and Khmer culture under a long period of conflict. In Peter Kiang's work, he found that refugee stories of resilience were a focal point for "motivating forces for persistence" (234, Kiang) for Southeast Asian students facing the challenge of university studies. However, many of the adolescent Cambodian American students in Lowell's classrooms today do not know this story. Understandably, many of their parents or elders are not able to or choose not to share with their children the traumatic stories that caused their forced departure from Cambodia.

In our unit on the human body, I incorporated a hands on lesson and the use of technology. The students were given different materials such as straws, balloons and large pop bottles and were asked to create a model of the respiratory system. All of the models turned out great! They were then given a sheet with different QR codes (see appendix). Each group member was in charge of exploring one or two of the QR codes and then report back to the group. Once they were finished I asked them to explain what they had learned. Our final part of this lesson was to do a reflection and post it on their blogs.

"People have been eating rice for over 4,000 years. It originated in Southeast Asia, and Spanish explorers brought it to the West Indies at least 500 years ago. Today, 8,000 varieties of rice are grown throughout the world. About 15 varieties are grown in the U.S." (Who Belongs Here?: An American Story by Margy Burns Knight) Because we have a strong Southeast Asian student population in the Butler Middle School in Lowell, this unit will focus on Cambodia to drive the question: "What can we learn about rice from the Five Themes of Geography?"Each lesson will revolve around one of the five themes of geography (Location, Place, Region, Movement, and Human Environmental Interaction.) In the sixth lesson, students make cookbooks of rice recipes from Cambodia and other countries from our student population.

This unit presents the earliest history of China, from the Neolithic period to the Shang dynasty, in order to introduce students to the development of "state level" (i.e. "civilized") societies.Two lesson plans and three student activities are presented here on-line; the full unit is available in the Primary Source library.Target grades: This unit of study was designed for students in grades four through seven. In several of the lessons, separate activities are provided for grades 4/5 from grades 6/7.Topics: geography, archeology, mythology, oracle bones, Chinese writing.

Rural life is quite separate and unlike urban life in most developing nations. In Cambodia, there is a great contrast between rural and urban life. The rice fields of Kampong Cham and the bustling streets of Phnom Penh are worlds apart. The purpose of these three lessons is to provide students with an overview of Cambodian rural life through lecture, reading, and writing. Students will analyze demographic data, write a creative story using the viewpoint of a village participant and critically discuss issues of poverty and modernization in rural Cambodia. Finally, they will reflect on how their own values influence the way they view life in rural Cambodia. These lessons are designed for a high school elective about Cambodia, but could certainly be used by any high school or middle school students studying Cambodia.

Science Online offers a comprehensive overview of a broad range of scientific disciplines. This resource includes eLearning modules, teacher support materials, diagrams, interactive science experiments and more.This resource is primarily designed for high school students but there is some content appropriate for Grade 6 - Grade 8 students.

Too often, the Vietnam War is taught solely from American perspectives, as students examine the role of the U.S. government and military in the conflict, the war's impact on American lives, and the ways in which the war influenced subsequent domestic and foreign policy. Framing the conflict in terms that ignore the Vietnamese and their experiences, however, makes it difficult for students to fully understand the nature of the war and its impact. These primary source activities prompt students to consider the war through the eyes of the Vietnamese and are designed to complement topics that are traditionally covered from U.S. perspectives. The first activity uses speeches made by Ho Chi Minh to examine how one Vietnamese leader viewed Vietnam's struggle. In the second activity, oral history interviews with Vietnamese soldiers and civilians are used to understand the motivations of some individuals to take arms against American and South Vietnamese forces. Finally, the third activity draws on Vietnamese antiwar music to explore Vietnamese feelings towards war and make comparisons with the American antiwar movement.

This article looks at a short and sweet way to try PBL/Inquiry/Passion Projects/Genius hour,

You can do this for a day or a week.

Women's roles, responsibilities and expectations have changed in dramatic ways as Chinese society has transformed throughout different political eras. From family structure, marriage, and childbirth to education, workforce participation, and political activity, women have seen and taken part in historical transformations that have accelerated over the last century. For students, exploring firsthand evidence of these changes Đ and witnessing continuities as well Đ is a far more exciting prospect than simply reading a text or even watching a documentary. There are multiple ways that teachers can offer students windows into the shifting values and beliefs about women in Chinese life; here, we offer three: investigating the design of an early nineteenth-century house; analyzing Communist propaganda posters from the Revolutionary period; and listening to an oral history of a young woman growing up in today's People's Republic of China. The changes are apparent when comparing these snapshots across time, but examining the sources also adds value, raising as many questions about women's lives as they answer, whetting students' appetites for an understanding of their context.