In this activity, students will use Coulomb's law and vector principles to determine the number of electrons which are transferred to a balloon as the result of 10 average-strength rubs on animal fur. Students will complete a formal lab write-up at the conclusion of the activity.

Students explore how DNA can tell us about ourselves and other organisms and species. They will also learn about the systematic study of the human genome and write an article summarizing what they have learned throughout the lesson.

In this activity, students create their own personal inferno journeys that reflects a real-life situation they may have faced or might face, that highlights a time where guidance might be needed to reach a better understanding.

In this lesson, teachers scaffold student reading of websites that highlight science, technology, engineering, and mathematics careers. Before choosing a text for close reading, the teacher models how to "read" the variety of texts and features of different websites, including images and interactives. Then the teacher models a close reading with students, setting a purpose and asking text-dependent questions to help students find evidence, use inferencing skills, and peer edit.

In this lesson students view examples of applealing blogs, learn the basic elements of blog creation, and then create a blog from the perspective of a fictional character. Students demonstrate their understanding of the text by including images, quotations, links, and commentary on their blogs. Students then help one another develop their blogs by acting as editiors during the creation stage and reviewing one another's blogs upon completion.

This lesson asks students to explore the motivation behind characters' actions in To Kill a Mockingbird. Students first engage in a freewrite activity. They then do research and creative thinking to design a poster and plan a presentation representing a psychological profile for a selected character, while determining what specific factors (such as family, career, environment, and so forth) have the greatest influence on the characters' decision making throughout the novel. The groups present their findings to the class by assuming the persona of their character and explaining the psychological factors influencing their behavior in the novel

In this lesson, students work in groups to create inventions using common objects then draft expository essays explaining the purpose of the invention.

This lesson and resource engages students in a metacognition exercise about critical thinking and also practice research and informational writing skills using a collection of critical thinking quotes.

The past is often neatly partitioned in time periods and eras with generalized names meant to characterize what life was like during that time. In this multi-day lesson, students question the validity of using ?Dark Ages? to describe Europe from the fall of the Roman Empire to the Renaissance. In the process, students examine a variety of primary and secondary sources highlighting different social, political, economic, cultural, and environmental facets of life in Europe during this period.

Students analyze characters by noting the ways in which defining moments shape their personalities in William Golding's Lord of the Flies. Students will chart changes, note the “direction” of their characters, support their conclusions with textual evidence, and present their findings.

In this lesson, students will work collaboratively to create a presentation featuring an electrostatics demonstration. The demonstration should deal with some aspect of the three basic principles of electrostatics. Each group will also submit a written descripton of their demonstration.

This literacy assessment includes an excerpt from the book "Winesburg, Ohio," six text-dependent questions, one optional writing prompt, and explanatory information for teachers regarding alignment to the CCSS.

In this lesson, students will use their research and analysis to communicate an evidence based perspective, using their research portfolios to guide them.

Students will explore solubility by designing an experiment to see if temperature affects the amount of dissolving of the sugar coating of an M&M candy. Students will also examine and compare solubility graphs for salt, sugar, and potassium chloride. At the end of the activity, students should be able to explain, on the molecular level, why increasing temperature increases the rate of dissolving. Supplemental student reading material is also provided as part of this lesson.

Students explore the qualities that make a classic writer"™s work special and then compose newspaper articles celebrating the works of different authors.

 Students will create a web page that is informational on a topic they select. They must include the history or aspect of history on their topic, a step by step tutorial with visual and written instructions, and a page with links to find more information on the topic to name a few. This is not an individual lesson, but a project that includes web building, information gathering, informational writing, and using various aspects of multimedia.

In this lesson, students will write global evidence-based claims after reading a text. Students will discuss both in pairs and as a class, evaluating approach and technique.

In this lesson, students will examine the writing model "A Brief History of Photography" and analyze what makes an informative paper effective, focusing in particular on purpose and audience.

In this lesson, students will analyze a second informative writing model and continue discussing what makes an informative paper effective in regards to purpose and audience.

In this lab activity, students will gather evidence that total system momentum is conserved in an explosion-like impulse between two stationary carts and to describe how the evidence supports the law of conservation of momentum. Students will produce a formal lab write-up at the conclusion of the activity.