Lessons

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Just as we engage students in establishing guidelines for building inclusive, safe spaces in our classrooms, it is vital that students learn how to communicate in internet groups and respond to bias online.

In the age of Google and other search engines, this lesson aims to help students navigate how information comes to them through online search tools.

In this lesson, students use data to analyze the participation of white, black, Asian and Hispanic men and women in STEM careers as compared with their participation in the general workforce. They then discuss the possible reasons identity groups are unequally represented in STEM careers.

In this lesson, students explore the varied work of scientists, technologists, engineers and mathematicians, and discuss character traits common to all of them. Students meet a diverse group of scientists—inventors, problem-solvers and those who explain the world around us.

In this lesson, students get in touch with their “inner scientists,” first by viewing a video of a 4-year-old solving a complex problem and then by working together to explain a discrepant event. Students also consider attributes shared by many scientists: curiosity, perseverance and the ability to problem-solve.

In this lesson, students will see how statistical data can tell a larger story, understand numbers in various contexts and explore different points of view in relation to data. They will also consider how—as future voters—they will help determine how the political process can serve everybody.

“The Rich Tapestry of Religion in the United States” features three lessons that help students assess the religious diversity of the United States, explore different religious and non-religious worldviews, and consider how freedom of religion relates to their own lives and the lives of others.

Children are surrounded – and targeted – by advertisements: on television, the computer, even on their journeys to and from school. Children need specific strategies for reading and talking about advertisements and their impact. Reading Ads with a Social Justice Lens is a series of 13 multidisciplinary mini-lessons that provide such strategies and build critical literacy. The lessons are designed for students in grades K-5 and include suggestions for simple adaptations. These lessons open up important conversations about the relationship between advertisements and social justice. Children will see that they have the power to decide how media will influence them. They will also engage in social justice projects that address some of the unfair messages they find in advertising.