Through a series of picture book read-alouds, students engage in critical discussion of complex issues of race, class, and gender.

Students learn about stress and strain by designing and building beams using polymer clay. They compete to find the best beam strength to beam weight ratio, and learn about the trade-offs engineers make when designing a structure.

Breaking News English is a free current events based lesson builder. New lesson every three days. All lessons are based on stories currently in the news - as the world's news breaks, teach it.

This site is very valuable for EAL students as it allows the speed of the audio of the article to be adjusted to the pace best suited to the language level of the student. It also offers a wide range of language activities to support EAL students.

Dave Valle breaks down defensive work by catchers and how it comes into play on wild pitches and plays at the plate

Some students misbehave because they are trying to attract teacher attention. Surprisingly, many students who value adult attention don't really care if it is positive (praise) or negative attention (reprimands)--they just want attention!
Unfortunately, instructors with students who thrive on teacher attention can easily fall into a 'reprimand trap.' The scenario might unfold much like this: First, the student misbehaves. Then the teacher approaches the student and reprimands him or her for misbehaving. Because the student finds the negative teacher attention to be reinforcing, he or she continues to misbehave-and the teacher naturally responds by reprimanding the student more often! An escalating, predictable cycle is established, with the student repeatedly acting-out and teacher reprimanding him or her.
Teachers can break out of this cycle, though, by using 'random positive attention' with students. Essentially, the instructor starts to ignore student attention-seeking behaviors, while at the same time 'randomly' giving the student positive attention. That is, the student receives regular positive teacher attention but at times unconnected to misbehavior. So the student still gets the adult attention that he or she craves. More importantly, the link between student misbehavior and resulting negative teacher attention is broken.

Advanced-level students will write narratives from the perspective of slaves depicted in rare photographs, and then create a print depicting a moment from the narratives.

Students will analyze the emotions and personality conveyed in an 18th-century sculpture bust of a strong and confident African man and learn that such a portrayal is unique for its time. They will then create an original portrait bust of a strong person who has faced difficult situations.

Students will learn about ancient styles of Roman portraiture and their influence on western European art, research and write a paper that compares Roman and American slavery, and produce an original sketch of a grave relief for a freed slave.

In this math activity, students conduct a strength test using modeling clay, creating their own stress vs. strain graphs, which they compare to typical steel and concrete graphs. They learn the difference between brittle and ductile materials and how understanding the strength of materials, especially steel and concrete, is important for engineers who design bridges and structures.

Though teachers usually caution students against using sentence fragments, Edgar Schuster's work demonstrates that professional writers often use fragments effectively. This lesson helps students understand that there are reasons that they can and should use sentence fragments to become effective writers.

Choose from various BreakoutEDU Challenges to support students with life/career explorations as they explore curriculum outcomes.

This is for Math SP7.3 and/or SP8.2 Probability. This activity reinforces the concepts of probability of independent events.

This is an activity for students who have learned about theoretical probability and independent events.

"It can be tough to tell what’s true and what’s “fake news” just by looking at a headline. But it’s easy to do a quick check and get the real facts when something doesn’t look right online."

With a little help from the house hippo, in this lesson students are introduced to the challenges of identifying what is real and what is fake online.
Break the Fake lesson plans are available for grades K-12

Students learn about and experiment with the concept of surface tension. How can a paper clip "float" on top of water? How can a paper boat be powered by soap in water? How do water striders "walk" on top of water? Why do engineers care about surface tension? Students answer these questions as they investigate surface tension and surfactants.

Students are introduced to the respiratory system, the lungs and air. They learn about how the lungs and diaphragm work, how air pollution affects lungs and respiratory functions, some widespread respiratory problems, and how engineers help us stay healthy by designing machines and medicines that support respiratory health and function.

Sesame Street's newest human resident, Mando (introduced in the fall of 2013), narrates while kids and a blue monster together tackle everyday frustrations -- like struggling to tie shoes, dealing with separation anxiety, taking turns, and going to bed -- and learn how to deal with them. Students must work through one problem before unlocking the next. Animated video clips show the blue monster's problem, then kids tap his belly to help him breathe deeply and calm down. When the monster is calm, students tap thought bubbles, which produces three possible strategies. Students get to choose which strategy the monster will try and then see him do it in another animated video clip. The technique of breathing, thinking, and doing is reinforced throughout.

This is a free app available from: (copy and paste URL into your browser)
Apple - https://apps.apple.com/us/app/id721853597?ign-mpt=uo%3D4
Google Play - https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=air.com.sesameworkshop.ResilienceThinkBreathDo
Amazon - https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00H56X50O?tag=comsenmed07-20

Students use a simple pH indicator to measure how much CO2 is produced during respiration, at rest and after exercising. They begin by comparing some common household solutions in order to determine the color change of the indicator. They review the concepts of pH and respiration and extend their knowledge to measuring the effectiveness of bioremediation in the environment.