Once a week, several classrooms of Philadelphia 4th-grade girls participate in Sisters in Science, an afterschool, intergenerational program sponsored by Temple University that provides hand-on activities exploring urban environmental issues. A two-week summer camp program helps these students explore the rivers of Philadelphia. Participants…

Describes a school-university collaboration that developed alternative teaching strategies for motivating inner-city, African-American middle school students (effort-based grading, multiple performance opportunities, increased student responsibility/choice, and validation of cultural differences). Observations, teacher journals, and student…

The Urban Intergenerational Outreach Education Program transferred cancer prevention from a cancer center to community and school settings, involving a university, an academic medical center, a school district, and a nonprofit arts organization. Project staff developed the culturally and developmentally appropriate curriculum for urban middle…

Describes an interdisciplinary survival project that piques middle school students' imaginations as it tests their problem solving and critical thinking skills in a survival setting. The futuristic time travel project integrates subject areas and fosters skills in communication, cooperation, and group decision making. (SM)

This report summarizes a qualitative study that examined girls in six middle schools representing a range of geographic locations and settings as well as the racial and ethnic mix found in schools across the United States. The schools were all involved in educational reform efforts. The report examines how girls negotiate middle school and gauges…

The Youth Risk Behavior Survey (YRBS) Middle School Questionnaire, produced by the National Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, was administered for the first time in North Carolina in 1995. The survey monitored high-priority health-risk behaviors, including: (1) weapons and violence; (2) suicide-related behaviors; (3) vehicle safety; (4)…

The six thematic teaching units, designed for teaching Spanish to native speakers in the American Southwest, are a result of a July 1993 conference of 30 middle school and high school teachers. Each unit was produced by a group of teachers, and is entirely or primarily in Spanish. The units contain lesson outlines, activities, tests, samples of…

This book brings together, under the term "whole learning," ideas from the language-arts-based whole language movement and work in middle schools with multidisciplinary, problem-centered, integrative approaches. The book contains 15 chapters, most written by teachers about their experiences with implementing whole learning curricula. The…

Because of the high number of at-risk students at Carver Middle School (Meridian, Mississippi), the principal developed several programs to bring student achievement to the level commensurate with other students around the nation. The Early Bird Program is a Chapter One program of individualized work in math, reading, and language arts classes to…

This paper describes the history, characteristics, program model, activities, and evaluation results of the Pottstown Homework Center Partnership project, in Pottstown County, Pennsylvania. The goal of the program is to initiate homework centers and train volunteer tutors from the community to support the at-risk middle students by providing…

The purpose of this guide is to assist teachers in planning and organizing for the use of computers as part of their everyday mathematics curriculum. Mathematics was chosen as the subject area to demonstrate how students can be taught problem-solving skills and strategies with the computer. However, this computer integration guide provides…

The "Curriculum and Evaluation Standards for School Mathematics" (1989) provides a vision and a framework for revising and strengthening the K-12 mathematics curriculum in North American schools and for evaluating both the mathematics curriculum and students' progress. The document not only addresses what mathematics students should…

The "Curriculum and Evaluation Standards for School Mathematics" (1989) provides a vision and a framework for revising and strengthening the K-12 mathematics curriculum in North American schools and for evaluating both the mathematics curriculum and students' progress. The document not only addresses what mathematics students should…

A program to reinforce English-as-a-Second-Language (ESL) learning through participation in a choral performance group (Los Cumbancheros) is described and evaluated. The program served 218 students in 5 intermediate and junior high schools and 2 elementary schools in the Bronx (New York). Most students were classified as limited English…

Growing Up Strong (GUS) is a curriculum designed to develop strong mental and physical health in kindergarten through sixth grade students, with the objective of preventing subsequent substance abuse. This document contains a teacher's guide for using GUS in fifth and sixth grade classrooms (GUS 5-6) and duplication masters of materials that can…