The Declaration of Independence was a product of the Second Continental Congress. Two earlier intercolonial conferences had occurred, each building important keystones of colonial unity. The Stamp Act Congress and the First Continental Congress brought the delegates from differing colonies to agreement on a message to send to the king. Each successive Congress brought greater participation. Each time the representatives met, they were more accustomed to compromise. As times grew more desperate, the people at home became more and more willing to trust their national leaders.

Those who defended slavery rose to the challenge set forth by the Abolitionists. The defenders of slavery included economics, history, religion, legality, social good, and even humanitarianism, to further their arguments.

Ancient Egypt, also had dynasties. They were families who often ruled for a considerable number of years and did impressive things — such as building pyramids — during their rule.

To understand the life and death of Jesus and the birth of Christianity, one must understand the context of the Roman Empire. Jesus was a Jew, as were almost all of his early followers.

7th Grade Historical Literacy consists of two 43 minute class periods. Writing is one 43 minute block and reading is another. The teacher has picked themes based on social studies standards, and a read-aloud novel based on social studies serves as the mentor text for writing and reading skills. More social studies content is addressed in reading through teaching nonfiction reading skills and discussion. Standards reflect CCSS ELA, Reading, and Social Studies Standards.

Drawing upon the online archives of the U.S. Holocaust Museum, this lesson helps students to put the events described by Anne Frank into historical perspective, and also serves as a broad overview of the Nazi conquest of Europe during World War II. After surveying the experiences of various countries under Nazi occupation, the lesson ends with activities related specifically to the Netherlands and Anne Frank.

The month of May is an opportunity for reflection on and commemoration of all that AAPI individuals and organizations have accomplished and contributed to U.S. history and culture. This piece highlights NEH projects and classroom resources for teaching about these experiences in America.

Students are introduced to the concept of engineering biological organisms and studying their growth to be able to identify periods of fast and slow growth. They learn that bacteria are found everywhere, including on the surfaces of our hands. Student groups study three different conditions under which bacteria are found and compare the growth of the individual bacteria from each source. In addition to monitoring the quantity of bacteria from differ conditions, they record the growth of bacteria over time, which is an excellent tool to study binary fission and the reproduction of unicellular organisms.

This is a middle school 6-8 grade lesson on CEI: Making a Claim Citing Textual Evidence.

The curriculum section provides over one hundred garden-based lessons to create, expand, and sustain garden-based learning experiences. It offers practical ideas and resources for every level of garden-based learning from sprouting seeds to understanding the food system.

This curriculum section was compiled by the University of California Division of Agriculture and Natural Resources Garden-Based Learning Workgroup. The content for this section was borrowed, with permission, from various resources. It was our goal to use existing resources as not to “recreate the wheel” and to give a broad example of the garden-based learning resources that are currently in print.

The section is divided into 12 theme areas with applications for primary and upper grade level students.

Using their new skills in deconstructing advertisements, students will look at advertisements through the lens of gender.  Students will be encouraged to critically analyze the cultural stereotypes for men and women. Students will deconstruct advertisements based on gender representation.Rationale: Students will begin to see how believing in stereotypes can lead towards a negative self image for men and women.  This is Part 4 of a 5 part Unit: Media Manipulation: What Are They Really Saying?

This activity emphasizes the importance of teaching reading and writing strategies for students to use with informational text.

This unit is focused on the examination of a single topic, in this case, the Native Americans of the inland Northwest and conflict that arose when other non-native people started to settle in the northwest, and to specifically address the native populations that lived in the inland northwest. The materials were created to be one coherent arc of instruction focused on one topic. The module was designed to include teaching notes that signal the kind of planning and thinking such instruction requires: close reading with complex text, and specific instructional strategies or protocols are described that support students’ reading and writing with evidence are described in enough detail to make it very clear what is required of students and how to support students in doing this rigorous work. Materials include summative assessment of content and process, central texts, key resources, and protocols that support and facilitate student learning.

For these lessons, students will be taken through a variety of activities to learn about plagiarism. They will learn what plagiarism is, the consequence for it, how to paraphrase writing, when to use direct quotes, and how to cite. This is a wonderful webquest for students to go through.

The purpose of this lesson is to encourage students to examine various aspects of cultural identity. The students will view the film Turbans, which focuses on a Sikh family's immigration to Oregon in the early 1900s.

In 1691, a group of girls from Salem, Massachusetts accused an Indian slave named Tituba of witchcraft, igniting a hunt for witches that left 19 men and women hanged, one man pressed to death, and over 150 more people in prison awaiting a trial. In this lesson, students will explore the characteristics of the Puritan community in Salem, learn about the Salem Witchcraft Trials, and try to understand how and why this event occurred.

In this curriculum unit, students will learn about the origins of four major types of British surnames. They will consult lists to discover the meanings of specific names and later demonstrate their knowledge of surnames through various group activities. They will then compare the origins of British to certain types of non-British surnames. In a final activity, the students will research the origins and meanings of their own family names.