Every April I like to do at least one environmental-themed lesson or activity with my students. I’m not a granola-eating hippie that’s out to save Mother Earth, and I’m not a right-wing climate-change denier that claims humans couldn’t possibly wreak such havoc on the planet. I like to take the middle road, and that’s where I like to guide my students as well. Rather than start with a position, I start with a...

I’m addicted….late night viewings of Food Revolution, Wired Science, and Community are just a few of the television shows that have kept me up far past my bedtime recently. To be fair, I was addicted to TV long before Hulu came around, and after cutting ourselves lose from all manner of paid TV last Fall, I’ve still managed to get “my fix” of new shows (albeit a day or two late) thanks to what has arguably...

What could you do with this video in your classroom? My “off the cuff” ideas: Language Arts: Have the students write a companion poem for the video (middle or high school) Math: Have the students attempt to estimate the amount of surface area painted during the course of the video (extra credit) Science: Using the position of the sun, try to determine how many days/hours the artists spent creating this work (really difficult...

While digging around one of the many Thanksgiving websites that pop up on teacher sites this time of year, I discovered a few pieces of sound that would be more at home about 380 years ago. The Plimoth Plantation, a living history museum in Plymouth, MA that recreates the time period of the early Pilgrims, has a section of their site dedicated to kids. While most of it is the typical “print me out and color me” worksheets and...

Aeneas first led a group of Trojan refugees to its hillsides. Romulus murdered his brother at its foundations. Caesar eyed it greedily as he crossed the Rubicon. And now Google has brought the ancient city of Rome to life in all of it’s 3 dimensional glory in Google Earth! To say that I’m as excited as a pre-teen with a backstage pass to a Miley Cyrus concert would be an understatement. Long before I had ever dreamt of becoming...