Junior high school teacher Mary Rice designs a consumer research unit that cultivates students' critical reading and thinking skills. As students learn how to develop and revise criteria for evaluating the reliability of online information, they read customer reviews, research products, and present their findings orally.

A time of upheaval and innovation, the American Colonial Period (1600-1775) was marked by New World settlers' struggles to adapt to a life that lacked anything familiar or prefabricated. The period provides a rich opportunity to study the contributions of the colonists across multiple disciplines. In the fall of 2003, a team of eighth-grade…