In this lesson, students explore some fascinating stories from the news and history (and the future) about number encodings in computers. These stories should serve to illuminate how the kinds of decisions students have been making about number encodings are the same kinds of things that real scientists in the world have to worry about, sometimes with disastrous consequences. While this lesson has the possibility of running long, it is meant only as a short excursion into real-world application and should be limited to one class period.

In this lesson students will conduct a small amount of research to explore a file format either currently in use or from history. Students will conduct research in order to complete a "one-pager" that summarizes their findings. They will also design a computational artifact (video, audio, graphic, etc.) that succinctly summarizes the advantages of their format over other similar ones.

This lesson is intended to be a quick, short version of a performance task in which students rapidly do some research and respond in writing. It might take 2 class days but should not take more. The goal is to develop skills that students will use when they complete the actual Explore PT later in the year.

The CUNY HSE Curriculum Framework provides direction, structure and materials for teaching math, science and social studies (integrated with reading and writing) in the new era of HSE instruction. The complete framework is available for free download.

The framework was written by the CUNY Adult Literacy PD Team to respond to the challenges facing high school equivalency (HSE) teachers and their students. It is a guide for planning your instruction – including topic recommendations, model lessons, guiding questions, readings, and problems. The framework prioritizes depth over breadth. It does not address all of the content that might potentially be included on an HSE exam, but instead models a focused and coherent study of high priority topics within each content area.

As teachers in adult literacy and HSE education, our work has always been demanding. Now that our students face a new and more challenging HSE test, the demands on teachers are even greater. Teaching students to read, write and do math at the HSE level is no longer enough. Students need specific, deep and coherent content knowledge, as well as the capacity to apply this content knowledge to analysis and problem solving.

As the demands on our students and teachers are increasing, it is important that we don’t lose sight of one of our greatest strengths — our practice of starting from where students are and our serious respect for their learning processes. As a student of ours once said, “You can’t make a plant grow by pulling on it, you only make it rootless.”

The Social Studies section integrates reading and writing through a focus on U.S. history, with extensions to civics, economics and geography. This section has a curriculum map, 12 unit descriptions, six model lesson plans and additional resources.

The Science section provides an introduction to matter and basic chemistry with extensions to science/math connections. This section includes a curriculum map with 23 topic descriptions and key questions, and three complete inquiry-based model lesson plans.

The Math section focuses on problem-solving in functions and algebra. It integrates problem-solving strategies, productive struggle, perseverance and mathematical discussion into content learning. This section includes a curriculum map, model lessons, rich engaging math problems, samples of student work, powerful routines for math classrooms, classroom videos, and more.

Julius Caesar installs Cleopatra as Pharaoh in Ptolemaic Egypt and becomes Dictator for Life, only to be assassinated by Brutus on the Ides of March.

Gustave Caillebotte, Man at his Bath, 1884, oil on canvas, 57 x 45 in. (144.8 x 114.3 cm), (Private Collection, on loan to the National Gallery, London) Speakers: Dr. Parme Giuntini, Director of Art History, Otis College of Art and Design Dr. Robert Summers, Lecturer, Otis College of Art and Design. Created by Beth Harris and Steven Zucker.

Gustave Caillebotte, The Floor Scrapers (Les raboteurs de parquet), 1875, oil on canvas, 102 x 146.5 cm (Musée d'Orsay, Paris). Speakers: Dr. Parme Giuntini, Director of Art History, Otis College of Art and Design and Dr. Robert Summers, lecturer, Otis College of Art and Design. Created by Beth Harris and Steven Zucker.

An activity where students make a geologic timeline from calculator tape.

(Note: this resource was added to OER Commons as part of a batch upload of over 2,200 records. If you notice an issue with the quality of the metadata, please let us know by using the 'report' button and we will flag it for consideration.)

Met curator Marla Prather on motion in Alexander Calder’s Mobile, 1941. Alexander Calder was born to a family of sculptors. His grandfather, Alexander Milne Calder (1846-1923), studied with Thomas Eakins and is famous for the elaborate sculptural decorations of Philadelphia's City Hall. Calder himself had studied to be an engineer at the Stevens Institute of Technology before attending the Art Students League in New York. Like many aspiring artists of his generation, Calder then spent time in Paris where he was inspired by Joan Miró's work and absorbed the playfulness of Dada. Indeed, it was the French artist Marcel Duchamp who christened Calder's hanging sculptures "mobiles." For works such as this one, Calder cut sheet metal into various shapes and assembled these elements in a chain-linked system so that the flat metal pieces move in response to currents of air. This particular mobile was included in the 1942 exhibition "Artists for Victory" at the Metropolitan where the sculpture committee awarded it a prize and recommended it be added to the collection. Created by The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

An advertising calendar for a lithographic printing firm, decorated with Unionist symbols and motifs. The calendar for 1863 and the first 6 months of 1864 is surrounded with an elaborate framework of floral and acanthus ornament, surmounted by the figure of Columbia or Liberty. The figure is closely based on Thomas Crawford's statue of Freedom on the U.S. Capitol. She stands holding shield and sword, and wearing a robe emblazoned with stars and an eagle headdress with a crown of stars. At her right are symbols of progress, industry, and culture: a locomotive, a plough with a sheaf of grain, a statue, and a printing press. At her left are artifacts of war such as tents, cannons, arms, and an eagle. Flanking the calendar itself are two vignettes. On the left is a peacetime scene, with a farmer holding a scythe as two field hands harvest grain behind him. On the right a soldier with a rifle stands before a battlefield. Two putti appear in the acanthus scrolls below.|Ehrgott, Forbriger & Co. Lithographers, Cincinnati.|Entered . . . 1862 by Ehrgott, Forbriger & Co. . . . Ohio.|The Library's copy of the calendar was deposited for copyright on January 3, 1863.|Title appears as it is written on the item.|Published in: American political prints, 1766-1876 / Bernard F. Reilly. Boston : G.K. Hall, 1991, entry 1862-17.

An advertising calendar for a lithographic printer, with various patriotic motifs and a subtle commentary on the Emancipation Proclamation. The calendar, for 1863, is set within an elaborate architectural framework. The whole is draped with an enormous flag which hangs down from an enthroned Columbia at top. Columbia sits holding a sword and shield, an eagle on her left, and a globe and the Constitution at her feet. Further left are a plough, scythe, and wheat sheaves. On the right appear symbols of progress and industry including a telescope, locomotive, anvil and hammer, millstone and gear wheel, and bales and barrels of goods. On the middle register are symbols of the arts, sciences, and learning, including an easel painting, palette and brushes, musical instruments, books, urns, and a tapestry. On the far left a seaman mans a cannon before a backdrop of sails and smokestacks. On the right an infantryman stands guard with his dog before an encampment. At the bottom are two scenes. The scene on the left shows three black children and a white child, who watches idly as one of the three stands on a cotton bale and whitewashes over a placard reading "1862." Another black child, kneeling on a crude wooden block with chains attached to it (an allusion to slavery), holds the bucket of whitewash, and the third blows soap bubbles. In the scene on the right the roles are reversed: as the white child works, the three black children are idle. Standing on a pedestal labeled "Emancipation," the white boy inscribes the date "1863" on a panel. He holds a portfolio under his arm. A black child sits on a classical cornice at left, holding a small bucket of paint while one of his companions reclines on the ground. The third black child sits fiddling on a fallen column nearby. A small hourglass appears in a vignette below the calendar. |Ehrgott, Forbriger & Co. Lith. Cincinnati.|Entered . . . 1862 by Ehrgott, Forbriger & Co. . . . Ohio.|The Library's impression of the calendar was deposited for copyright on January 3, 1863. |Title appears as it is written on the item.|Published in: American political prints, 1766-1876 / Bernard F. Reilly. Boston : G.K. Hall, 1991, entry 1862-18.

This is a multi-format ethnographic field collection project, undertaken during the New Deal, that includes sound recordings, still photographs, drawings, and written documents from a variety of European ethnic and English- and Spanish-speaking communities in Northern California.

The necessity of teaching LGBTQ history has never been more apparent than in the current political climate. Over the past year, hundreds of anti-LGBTQ laws have been proposed across the country. Several have specifically attempted to prohibit teaching about these topics. California educators remain committed to an inclusive curriculum and continue to lead the charge modeling best practices in teaching LGBTQ history.

But, the path has not always been clear. When California educators started to implement this flagship law, SB48, otherwise known as the FAIR Act, which called for inclusion of LGBTQ Americans in U.S. history courses at the K-12 level, so many questions arose. Most of the discussion has centered around how to make our curriculum more inclusive while efficiently managing our limited instructional time.

One of the key issues has been about whether to create stand-alone or integrated lessons. Stand-alone lessons are significant because they allow students to do a deep dive into a specific topic. This can be useful when addressing big issues in the LGBTQ past. Here are a few examples of lessons that do just that:

Highlights from the past and present of California, from the rich online collections of the Library of Congress.

This is a primary source photo collection on Californios, elite families that received large land grants from Spain and Mexico, flourished during the 1830s to 1880s. The hand-drawn diseño maps underscore their vital connection to land ownership. The more formal surveyed maps that followed US acquisition of California show changing values regarding land ownership. As Californios lost land and power in the late 19th century, they tried to adapt to these changes by using social networks to maintain their identities as elites. The formal portraits were one way to bolster this image. Photographs of the Ramona Pageant from the 1950s testify to the mythologizing of California's Mexican and Spanish pastoral heritage less than 100 years later.

Call and response has an important history in traditional West African music, especially in spiritual music and protest movements. Although the specific expression of this practice varies across the diaspora depending on the geographic location and musical lineage of practitioners, there are striking similarities in seemingly disparate locations, like the southern United States, Cuba, and northern Brazil. The preservation of call and response practices within these locations (and many others) suggests the importance of collectivity when healing from systemic oppression.

With this interest in mind, David Diaz invites students to join into this call and response by listening to and producing sounds and/or movements as they are comfortable. In joining a collective, there is also space for individuality, and even dissonance. In that interest, students can recognize the shared histories and practices that the music reveals, as well as the particularities of specific cultures and historical actors.

Once more the House of Representatives investigation of Treasury practices under the Van Buren administration in connection with the Swartwout embezzlement scandal. (See above nos. 1839-6 through -9.) The print must have appeared in January or February, after the House of Representatives voted to form its select investigative committee by ballot. Speaker of the House James K. Polk, perceived as a friend of the administration, was prevented by a Whig majority in the House from appointing the committee himself, as was customary. Here a kneeling, bespectacled Polk is berated by Satan (who could represent Van Buren). Satan: "What does this mean? How came you to let that Committee be chosen by ballot? Don't you know we're undone? Was it for this I made you Chancellor of the Exchequer? Did not you engage to do all our work? and manage the House for my interest? and here's that cursed [Whig Congressman Henry A.] Wise with his Committee breaking in to our Head Quarters! I'll cashier you!!" Polk: "Dread Sir! be not too wratful with your servant; I did my very best. You know I have not the influence I once had; I'm sure I turned & twisted & did all a man could. Pray try me but once more; See if I don't carry your Sub-Treasury Bill for you, & if that passes you know we are all made!" "Called to Account" is most probably by the same artist as "Symptoms of a Duel" (no. 1839-10).|Drawn by HD?|Entd . . . 1839 by H.R. Robinson.|Printed & publd. by H.R. Robinson, 52 Cortlandt & 11-1/2 Wall st. N. Y.|Title appears as it is written on the item.|Weitenkampf, p. 57.|Forms part of: American cartoon print filing series (Library of Congress)|Published in: American political prints, 1766-1876 / Bernard F. Reilly. Boston : G.K. Hall, 1991, entry 1839-11.

Calligraphy Qallam offers visitors information about the Arabic alphabet, various styles of scripts, and the process and history of calligraphy. It offers tutorial videos which demonstrate the various shapes of the Arabic characters both within one script and between different scripts. There is also a "script quiz" which allows visitors to test their ability to recognize different calligraphic scripts. The site also includes a blog and a forum where topics surrounding calligraphy are discussed.

This is a unit I created for a section of my art history course.  Our community college has a sizeable population of Cambodian immigrants with an interest in learning about their heritage.   Most art history survey courses in the United States do not sufficiently expose students to the culture of Southeast Asia.  

Camel, first half of the 12th century, fresco transferred to canvas, from San Baudelio de Berlanga, Spain (Met Cloisters, New York) speakers: Dr. Lauren Kilroy-Ewbank and Dr. Steven Zucker. Created by Smarthistory.