This course was created by the Rethink Education Content Development Team. This course is aligned to the NC Standards for 4th Grade English Language Arts. 

In this lesson, students will develop a deeper understanding of chemical and physical changes as they participate in an activity to see the effect salt has on the body, participate in discussions about making healthy choices about salt and then research/share findings about reasons (pro and con) for reducing salt intake. Extension activities included.

Help students explore an important moment of environmental activism in North Carolina with Save Our Sand Dunes by Hannah Bunn West and with Ann-Cabell Baum. This complementary learning guide to the book is designed to help educators guide young readers in discovering how Carolista Baum rallied a community and advocated for local and state leaders to preserve Jockey's Ridge.

The teacher will introduce to students the idea that different places vary, grow and change over time, partly because of human beliefs and actions and partly because of physical characteristics. Then the teacher will work with higher-level students to research several different communities around the world. They will work with the teacher to find contacts for other school children so that all students in the class may Skype to learn more about different communities around the world and how changes have taken place due to human and natural causes. Lastly, the students will create an Excel spreadsheet to list different categories of the environment that have been influenced by human and environmental causes. After Skyping with people in several different communities, higher-level students will create the spreadsheet with their own community and several other communities and the categories so they may easily compare/contrast the physical and human characteristics of each. This lesson was developed by NCDPI as part of the Academically and/or Intellectually Gifted Instructional Resources Project. This lesson plan has been vetted at the state level for standards alignment, AIG focus, and content accuracy.

Students determine the moral/lesson of "The Dove and the Ant" and answer guiding questions. An extension research question is included.

After the teacher has read books and internet articles to students regarding key historical events that occurred in NC and in their own area of the state and that have affected the local community, region, and state, higher level students will be asked to research more deeply these  events and collaboratively create a timeline of these events (in NC). This lesson was developed by NCDPI as part of the Academically and/or Intellectually Gifted Instructional Resources Project. This lesson plan has been vetted at the state level for standards alignment, AIG focus, and content accuracy.

Higher-level students will work collaboratively to create trivia game cards about the elements that define states and nations.  They will find information on the internet or in books to help them find information about specific states and nations.  Students will analyze the information to determine which information would be important enough to include on the game card to help someone figure out the answer.  The information that they will be finding will include details about culture, demographics, economy, and geography of the state or nation for which they are trying to define and write a trivia card.  This lesson was developed by NCDPI as part of the Academically and/or Intellectually Gifted Instructional Resources Project. This lesson plan has been vetted at the state level for standards alignment, AIG focus, and content accuracy.

Higher-level students will be divided into small groups so that they may work collaboratively with their peers to research (even possibly interview via Skype or e-mail) a particular entrepreneur of NC.  Students will draw from “a hat” the entrepreneur who they will research, and they will also draw from “a hat” the type of project that they will complete on the entrepreneur to reveal what they have learned.  Then after exploring how entrepreneurs have become entrepreneurs, students will work on a small entrepreneur fair for their class/school.  They will develop a product to sell at the fair.  This lesson was developed by NCDPI as part of the Academically and/or Intellectually Gifted Instructional Resources Project. This lesson plan has been vetted at the state level for standards alignment, AIG focus, and content accuracy.