Criteria for Historical Thinking
Very well To some extent To a limited degree Not at all Not applicable

Question stems and prompts you can use to draw out the historical thinker in all your students
To begin a unit or lesson focused on cause and consequence:
• What were the short- and long-term causes of X (an historical event)?
• What were the consequences of X (an historical event)?
• Was it really X (a person) who gave birth to Y (a development)?
• What kind of a difference did X make to Y (a community)?
• What lay behind X (an historical event)?
• How did X (a cause or an historical event) make a difference?
• Was X a success? In what ways?
• Whose lives changed because of X (an historical event)?
...

Criteria for Historical Thinking
Very well To some extent To a limited degree Not at all Not applicable

Question stems and prompts you can use to draw out the historical thinker in all your students
To consider the perspectives of people in their historical context:
• If this action doesn’t seem to make sense, isn’t what you might expect, or is surprising, why did X (a person) take this course of action?
• If this action appears to have been the best response, why did X (a person) not take this course of action?
• What did X (a group or individual) feel was most important in their life at this particular time?
...

Criteria for Historical Thinking
Very well
To some extent
To a limited degree
Not at all
Not applicable

Question stems and prompts you can use to draw out the historical thinker in all your students
To think about ethical positions in a textbook:
• How do textbooks convey ethical positions?
• Whose ethical positions do they represent?
• What ethical positions does our textbook take?
• What evidence do you see of these positions? (e.g., particular words or phrases)
• Which ethical positions in this textbook do you agree with (if any); which do you disagree with (if any)?
• How can it be useful to be aware of the ethical dimension in a textbook?
...

With this game, students explore the connection between climate, genetic variation and the transmission of hantavirus. A board and game pieces are provided. The resource is supported by teacher background information, assessments, and a scoring rubric. This is Activity 1 of the learning module, Human Health, Climate and Disease: A Critical Connection, part of the lesson series, Potential Consequences of Climate Variability and Change.

Students become familiar with the engineering design process as they design, build and test chair prototypes. The miniature chairs must be sturdy and functional enough to hold a wooden, hinged artist model or a floppy stuffed animal. They use their prototypes to assess design strengths and weaknesses.

Students work individually and in groups to compare and contrast two chairs that were made in different time periods. They will then create a collage depicting an historic scene inspired by artist Nicole Cohen's video installation that incorporates historic and modern imagery.

This short video and interactive assessment activity is designed to teach fourth graders about challenge problems - four operations with single units (metric capacities) - word problems.

Students are introduced to the "Walk the Line" challenge question. They write journal responses to the question and brainstorm what information they need to answer the question. Ideas are shared with the class (or in pairs and then to the class, if class size is large). Then students read an interview with an engineer to gain a professional perspective on linear data sets and best-fit lines. Students brainstorm for additional ideas and add them to the list. With the teacher's guidance, students organize the ideas into logical categories of needed knowledge.

Students teams use a laparoscopic surgical trainer to perform simple laparoscopic surgery tasks (dissections, sutures) using laparoscopic tools. Just like in the operating room, where the purpose is to perform surgery carefully and quickly to minimize patient trauma, students' surgery time and mistakes are observed and recorded to quantify their performances. They learn about the engineering component of surgery.

Challenging hate online (Grades 10-12)
In this lesson, students learn how digital media is used to promote or combat hatred and intolerance. After discussing the different ways that hate organizations get their messages out and how digital media have the potential to work against hatred, students visit and analyze anti-hate initiative websites.

At its core, the LEGO MINDSTORMS(TM) NXT product provides a programmable microprocessor. Students use the NXT processor to simulate an experiment involving thousands of uniformly random points placed within a unit square. Using the underlying geometry of the experimental model, as well as the geometric definition of the constant π (pi), students form an empirical ratio of areas to estimate a numerical value of π. Although typically used for numerical integration of irregular shapes, in this activity, students use a Monte Carlo simulation to estimate a common but rather complex analytical form the numerical value of the most famous irrational number, π.

features news and information about NASA's newest space telescope. As the world's most powerful X-rayobservatory, Chandra joins the Hubble Space Telescope and NASA's other observatories in a study of our universe, providing insights into the universe's structure and evolution. Visitors can track Chandra in orbit, watch live images from NASA-TV, and learn more about prior shuttle launch preparations.

This is an activity about image comparison. Learners will analyze and compare two sets of images of the Sun taken by instruments on the Solar Dynamics Observatory spacecraft. With Set 1, they will observe the Sun in both a highly active and a minimally active state, and be able to detect active regions and loops on the Sun by comparing the two images. With Set 2, they will identify areas of high magnetic activity on a magnetogram image and recognize that these areas correspond to highly active regions on the Sun.

Students are presented with a graph of atmospheric becomes COå_ values from Mauna Loa Observatory, and are asked to explore the data by creating a trend line using the linear equation, and then use the equation to predict future becomes COå_ levels. Students are asked to describe qualitatively what they have determined mathematically, and suggest reasons for the patterns they observe in the data. A clue to the reason for the data patterning can be deduced by students by following up this activity with the resource, Seasonal Vegetation Changes. The data graph and a student worksheet is included with this activity. This is an activity from Space Update, a collection of resources and activities provided to teach about Earth and space. Summary background information, data and images supporting the activity are available on the Earth Update data site.

The same object can look completely different depending on which coordinate system is used.

Students will explore changes in Earth's atmosphere over the past few centuries, then design, build, and analyze a structure that control internal temperature without using additional energy.