The Civic Achievement Award Program (CAAP) is a three-part citizenship education program for students in grades five through eight that teaches the skills needed to become active, informed citizens. The program increases student awareness of their democratic heritage and its everyday relevance through participation in various civic projects. (MLH)

As school systems face more budget cuts, elaborate field trips are being axed. A Virginia middle school experimented with an overnight lockout in the school gym. Since seventh graders were already grouped into four heterogeneous teams for a pilot instructional program, these groups were maintained during the "gymboree." Each student wore…

Sixth graders at Kamehameha Elementary School ascended a high mountain peak, successfully orienting themselves for over 5 miles using topographical maps and compasses and the knowledge, skills, and attitudes acquired at school. The article describes the program, noting the knowledge and tools students used to accomplish their goal. (SM)

After describing a traditional approach to literacy education for bilingual special education students, the article proposes a new approach based on theoretical and research advances which stresses holistic literacy in real situations. An example of interactive journal writing between a teacher and a mildly handicapped trilingual 11-year-old is…

A teacher of upper elementary deaf students describes a multidisciplinary study unit focused on the Alaskan dogsled race, the Iditarod. Activities included studying Alaskan geography and history, following specific racers (mushers) through daily updates faxed from Alaska, writing letters to mushers, calculating math facts related to the race,…

Connecting students to reading and writing means connecting them to real-world readers and writers. Writers' Day at one Pennsylvania middle school was established to bring regular working professionals (not authors or poets) from the community to school to share how writing is used in their professional and personal lives. All participants…

A teacher of sixth grade social studies classes describes how he implemented the core practices of the Foxfire approach, including student ownership, problem solving, and decision making; connections to the community; small-group teamwork; the teacher as facilitator and collaborator; and ongoing reflection and group self-evaluation. (SV)

Describes the effects of Camp DETOUR, an adventure experience program for sixth-grade students at a Georgia middle school. Program goals were improvement of student self-esteem as a component of drug abuse prevention and improvement of student behavior. The program was shown to have positive effects on student self-esteem. This result may deter…

Describes the PACKETS Program for Middle School Mathematics, a research-based performance-assessment program being developed by the Educational Testing Service. The activities, based on real-life problems whose solutions must address a particular client's needs, are designed to promote student learning while allowing the teacher to document this…

A crew of seventh and eighth graders at a middle school comprise the writers, editors, and talent of Kid Time News, produced by a Taft broadcasting station in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. News vignettes are aimed at children and include topics such as current events, bike safety, jobs, water safety, babysitting tips, and youth fitness. (MLH)

From leading garden tours to planning a visit for Japanese teachers and participating in community theater, middle schoolers at Fort Worth's Applied Learning Academy learn academic content by working on community projects. Students' writing skills soared as they developed, edited, and field-tested brochures and trail-guide maps for their botanical…

A school-business partnership in Rock Hill, South Carolina, resulted in fifth grade gifted students designing all the advertisements for local businesses in a special edition of the newspaper. Six lessons on advertising are summarized. (DB)

Studying global economic system helps middle-school students unravel complexities of world economics by focusing on other countries, their motivations as consumers, and their decision-making processes. By examining interrelationship of economics and everyday life, students can see their place in economic chain. Concepts such as marketing, stock…

Believing that confinement of students within the same four walls does not lead to the best learning, a sixth-grade teacher took his students 20 miles into the country to work on their science lessons, where they used all of their senses in a unique hands-on farm environment. (Author/KC)

To address the retained-student dropout rate and increase parent involvement, a Fort Lauderdale (Florida) middle school principal devised a program to help overage seventh graders catch up with their peers in one year and help parents achieve their own education goals. The Rogers' Achievement Program stresses basic skills, student-designed…