As fourth and fifth grade students study this unit in conjunction with their Indiana or U.S. history texts, they see how the Indiana pioneers ate and survived. Many of the foods taken for granted today were eaten by Indians in one of the Americas thousands of years ago. Students learn that the Native Americans had developed agricultural…

The key to a successful field trip is planning. This publication, designed to provide guidelines for the middle school teacher, outlines the step-by-step experience of a visit to Montpelier, the home of James Madison. A prefatory article by constitutional authority A. E. Dick Howard, called "James Madison and the Constitution," provides…

This booklet on nutrition for grades 4-6 contains classroom activities as well as recipes for easily prepared nutritious dishes, e.g., applesauce, cookies, bread. Information is provided on the nutritional values of items in the basic food groups, and activity sheets are included. (JD)

This handbook, designed to help teachers of fourth through sixth grades remodel their own lesson plans, has one basic objective: to demonstrate that it is possible and practical to integrate instruction for critical thinking into the teaching of all subjects. The handbook thoroughly discusses the concept of critical thinking and the principles…

This document presents the teacher's guide for an experimental research and demonstration project which focuses on the prevention of drug abuse among youth through self-management and resistance training. The major purpose of the curriculum described in this document is to prevent and reduce the incidence of habitual cigarette smoking and of…

Cooperative learning is a teaching strategy involving students in small group learning activities that promote positive interaction. Cooperative learning is one of the most thoroughly researched strategies available to educators. Studies have consistently found that cooperative learning promotes increased academic achievement and can be…

Describes an information exchange program between two Maryland middle schools that used telecommunications to exchange geographical and historical information and personal data. The activities of the talented and gifted classes that participated in the program are described, teacher responsibilities are explained, and the culminating visit between…

This book, part of a series of guides for K-12 teachers who are striving to align lively, classroom-tested practices with standards, that gathers together brief articles spotlighting suggestions for effective instruction. Noting that the upper elementary years are crucial ones in students' literacy development, the book opens with diverse ways for…

The one-room school experience is a part of U.S. and Tennessee history that should be preserved and shared. Since the last generation of scholars who attended one-room schools will soon be gone, the Jonesborough-Washington County (Tennessee) History Museum recreated this early system of education through a "living classroom" heritage…

"Crosses on the Lawn," the television program featured in this videotape and teaching guide, covers the causes and effects of the issues raised by racial hatred, and it reveals attempts to heal the wounds of bigotry. The fictional town of Springdale, home of the two main characters, Chaz and Chris, one white and one black, becomes a…

This project focused on the use of creative dramatics as a teaching tool in core academic subject classrooms. Research has shown that student-centered instructional activities, such as the use of creative dramatics, allow students to construct knowledge and make meaningful the new concepts being learned. This case study describes the classroom…

The purpose of this lesson is to familiarize students with life and technology around 1900 so that they can better understand how Thomas Edison and his many inventions influenced both. Without some understanding of Edison's time, it is unclear just how significant an impact Edison had on the world, both then and now. While the incandescent light…

This guide to a unit on a simulation game about the stock market contains an instructional text and two separate simulations. Through directed lessons and reproducible worksheets, the unit teaches students about business ownership, stock exchanges, benchmarks, commissions, why prices change, the logistics of buying and selling stocks, and how to…

This article describes a class geography project which involves middle school and junior high school students in re-mapping the United States. A bibliography of print and human resources is included. (Author/RM)

Presents a classroom exercise entitled, "Latitude, Longitude, Spell It" designed to reinforce the concepts of latitude and longitude. Teachers divide the class into teams, provide them with a map and latitude-longitude coordinate cards, and ask them to record cities found within a given radius of each coordinate. Includes necessary…