"Engaging Imagination in Ecological Education" illustrates how to connect students to the natural world and encourage them to care about a more sustainable, ecologically secure planet. Cultivating ecological understanding can be more challenging for teachers than simply imparting knowledge of ecological issues; it requires reimagining…

What happens in the first week of school could very well set the stage for the rest of the school year. Setting high standards for science activities based in inquiry can start on the first day of science class and develop as the year unfolds. With the use of simple, readily available, inexpensive materials, an efficient mystery box lesson can be…

"Teaching Kids to Change the World: Lessons to Inspire Social Responsibility for Grades 6-12," by Jennifer Griffin-Wiesner and Chris Maser, is a practical guide that provides educators with the essential tools to inspire young people to change the world for the better. Focusing on eight principles of change, it includes lessons, examples and…

Presents a series of exercises that can be used with any age level to stimulate visioning skills (e.g., dreaming, creating, intuiting, and imaging). The exercises focus on building imagination skills, guided imaging, envisioning the future that students would prefer, and creating a futures wheel. (DMM)

This book provides an overview of the creative problem-solving process and exercises to put the process the work. The illustrated, reproducible pages guide students through each step of the problem-solving process by using evaluation grids to track their ideas, solutions, and plans. The activities can be used in a variety of ways including for the…

Effective informational writing assignments show students that creativity and imagination are essential to the generation of new ideas in all content areas. A collection of these assignments has been arranged into five categories of increasing complexity based on the following criteria: whether the point of view is assigned as self-selected;…

Notes that lesson plans in English classes are unlike those in many disciplines, because the human factors involved often cause unpredictable elements. Points out that fantasy and spiritual inspiration often come into play when teachers put together language arts lesson plans. (SKC)

This book is a sequel to the book "Scamper" by the same author and builds upon the ideas of imagination development introduced in the first book. SCAMPER is an acronym with each of the seven letters serving as the initial letter or word phrases that form an idea-spurring checklist. The checklist provokes children's minds and spurs the production…

This digest considers approaches to langugae arts teaching that are based on mythic or archetypal ways of experiencing and knowing. The Digest argues that such approaches address students' inner lives more directly than do the usual instructional methods such as whole language or student-centered instruction, and thus can help to promote…

Imaging, or disciplined daydreaming, can be used in the composition class to expose students to their innate creativity, lessen writing anxiety, refresh memories before writing of personal experiences, and make impersonal subjects, such as historical events, vital and personal. Teachers can construct a classroom imaging session (which takes about…

In this book, the author demonstrates how teachers can transform the experience of K-12 students and help them become more knowledgeable and more creative in their thinking. At the core of this transformative process is imagination which can become the heart of effective learning if it is tied to education's central tasks. The book offers an…

A study was conducted to better understand creative visioning, the human ability to make connections. Interviews were conducted with 20 Seattle (Washington) residents, each of whom was involved in creativity or creative visioning. The sample defined creative visioning as a process which encourages the pursuit of new possibilities, dimensions, and…

Designed to give children a sense of the cultural heritage that fairy tales represent, this instructional unit was originally developed to motivate eighth-grade low-level readers and was later adapted for English as a second language classes and for a variety of elementary and secondary school learning levels. Objectives of the unit are to help…

The documents in this series provide educators in Saskatchewan with practical and relevant guides to teaching and learning as a means of expanding or refining teaching repertoires. This booklet explores focused imaging as a way to enhance student learning, describes the application of imagery to specific school curricula, and acts as a strategy…

Noting that everyday creativity often requires imaginative insight, this book provides opportunities for children and adults to invent and problem solve by confronting puzzling scenarios that invite visual imagination. Each of the 71 activities in the book begins with a scenario that promotes speculative imagination. In the creative- and…