A drug abuse prevention curriculum for middle school students in grades five through eight is presented in this document, one of a series that is designed to provide educators with the curricular tools necessary to challenge students to take personal responsibility for their health. Each of the 11 lessons includes information of the lesson…

During the 1979-1980 school year, 23 Old Order Amish pupils in the Pleasant Hill School near Bloomfield, Iowa, took the Iowa Test of Basic Skills. On the language arts subtest, five of six third grade students ranked above 50% in capitalization, four ranked above 50% in spelling and punctuation, and three ranked above 50% in usage. Four third…

This research examined the impact of the Apple Classrooms of Tomorrow (ACOT) project on seventh grade students in the year following their ACOT participation in sixth grade. Subjects were 24 former ACOT students and 29 matched control students, all of whom had attended sixth grade at the same school. All subjects were minority students…

The Mathematics Pentathlon is a tournament of mathematics games held each spring since 1979 to promote the development of mathematical concepts and skills while fostering interaction among the educational community. There are five games in each of four divisions, for grades K-1, 2-3, 4-5, and 6-7. The focus is on active problem solving and…

This document describes in depth a reading and writing project implemented at the sixth, seventh, and eighth grade levels at a public school in Portland, Oregon. The objectives of the Title I project--to improve students' reading and writing skills and to evaluate that improvement--are outlined, and each component of the program is described in…

The main emphasis of the career education world of work curriculum guide (6-7), developed by the Weatherford Elementary Schools, is to inform and orient students to the concept of work rather than prepare them for a specific career. This is achieved through the development of 22 career education concepts that are to be emphasized throughout the…

Reports on student attitudes toward science-technology-society (STS) after visiting a science-technology museum and considers what variable factors of the visitation impacted these attitudes. Results indicated that significant differences in attitudes were present between visiting and nonvisiting students and between grade levels. (TW)

This paper describes an approach to mathematics teaching and learning using teacher-constructed "virtual" materials. In this approach, virtual copies of real materials are manipulated with mouse movements to replicate the traditional physical manipulation of real materials. The paper reports on three case studies where the approach was…

This packet contains sixth and seventh grade level interdisciplinary lesson outlines about India. Concepts to be developed include: (1) "Geography and Its Impact upon the Development of India's Different Cultures"; (2) "Religion and Philosophy Focusing on Hinduism and Festivals"; (3) "Literature using the Ramayana and…

Conceptual and methodological limitations have hampered researchers' ability to establish valid, substantively meaningful, and theoretically driven self-report assessments of peer susceptibility. As a result, many assessments of peer susceptibility have been conceptualized as unidimensional and void of any theoretical underpinnings. This study…

Two issues were studied: students' perceptions of various situational influences of the school environment with regard to locus of control, and the relationship of situational influences to academic achievement. Situational influences involving parents, parental interaction, or home environment were most related to achievement. (MH)

This study examined where, how often, and how effectively vocabulary instruction occurred in 23 ethnically diverse upper-elementary classrooms in Canada. Data revealed that only 6 percent of school time was devoted to vocabulary knowledge development, with 1.4 percent devoted to vocabulary development in academic subjects. Most instruction…

Reports on a survey of 72 "recognized" middle schools and 83 randomly chosen schools, which indicates that most schools require reading instruction, especially in grade six. Finds that many offer remedial programs, but that practice has not responded to theoreticians' advocacy for reading in content areas. (RS)

Obtained peer nominations, teacher reports, and self-reports for 423 sixth and seventh graders. Compared to sociometrically average status students, neglected students reported higher levels of motivation and were described by teachers as being more self-regulated, more prosocial, and better liked. Aggressive-rejected, but not submissive-rejected,…

Four family process factors (parental expectations, parental interest, parental involvement, and family communication) were assessed for their impact on grades and achievement test scores of 300 students in sixth and seventh grades in a longitudinal study. The most influential was parental expectation of students' capabilities in specific…