Phil Spector and George Martin both created defining sounds of the 1960s, but, inevitably, as music and culture changed, so too did some musicians' ideas about allowing producers to exert control over their music. Some of the Singer-Songwriters of the early 1970s, such as Joni Mitchell, accepted little or no input from producers, focusing on the clarity and directness of the lyrics with sometimes minimal musical accompaniment. In the latter part of this lesson, students use a handout with information about both Betty Friedan's seminal The Feminine Mystique and events in 1960s Second-Wave Feminism as a backdrop by which to consider Joni Mitchell's decision to "self-produce"in the early 1970s.

To many, the sense of limitless possibility The Beatles arrived at while working inside Abbey Road Studios was part of a broader pattern of change connected to the 1960s countercultural movement. Political and social events, including student protests against the Vietnam War, a popular interest in the study of Eastern religions, and the publication of books such as 1964's The Psychedelic Experience, helped to inform The Beatles' musical decisions as much as the music the group invented fueled the rise of a new youth culture. The Beatles provided the soundtrack to a new experience. As popular icons that challenged social norms and encouraged creative thinking, recording artists like The Beatles began using multitracking technology to make music in the studio that could not be reproduced on the concert stage and that expanded our understanding of what popular music could be and what it could do. The studio was no longer a predictable space for recording live performances; it became a laboratory for constructing sophisticated musical imaginings. As such, it was a perfect reflection of the new youth culture's spirit.

This lesson is the fifth in a series called “The Different Colors of Beauty.” The goal of these lessons is to help students develop their racial or ethnic identities in a safe and open classroom environment, and appreciate the broad spectrum of beauty in our diverse, multicultural world.

Explore the separation of church and state with regards to school prayer and religious tolerance. This lesson is an exercise in Constitutional law, judicial process, critical thinking, persuasive writing and public speaking. It is best conducted over a period of weeks. Teachers may need to adapt the activity to meet time constraints or to overcome limitations that class size might present.

American author Pearl S. Buck spent most of her life in China. She returned to America in 1934, "an immigrant among immigrants"¦in my native land." In this lesson, students will explore American attitudes toward immigration in the 1930s through Pearl S. Buck's essay, "On Discovering America." They will explore the meaning of the term "American" in this context and look at how the media portrayed immigrants.

Play with one or two pendulums and discover how the period of a simple pendulum depends on the length of the string, the mass of the pendulum bob, and the amplitude of the swing. It's easy to measure the period using the photogate timer. You can vary friction and the strength of gravity. Use the pendulum to find the value of g on planet X. Notice the anharmonic behavior at large amplitude.

Play with one or two pendulums and discover how the period of a simple pendulum depends on the length of the string, the mass of the pendulum bob, and the amplitude of the swing. It's easy to measure the period using the photogate timer. You can vary friction and the strength of gravity. Use the pendulum to find the value of g on planet X. Notice the anharmonic behavior at large amplitude.

Trace the elements of history, literature, polemic, and autobiography in the 1847 Narrative of William W. Brown, An American Slave.

This interactive Flash animation allows students to explore size estimation in one, two and three dimensions. Multiple levels of difficulty allow for progressive skill improvement. In the simplest level, users estimate the number of small line segments that can fit into a larger line segment. Intermediate and advanced levels offer feature games that explore area of rectangles and circles, and volume of spheres and cubes. Related lesson plans and student guides are available for middle school and high school classroom instruction. Editor's Note: When the linear dimensions of an object change by some factor, its area and volume change disproportionately: area in proportion to the square of the factor and volume in proportion to its cube. This concept is the subject of entrenched misconception among many adults. This game-like simulation allows kids to use spatial reasoning, rather than formulas, to construct geometric sense of area and volume. This is part of a larger collection developed by the Physics Education Technology project (PhET).

See how light knocks electrons off a metal target, and recreate the experiment that spawned the field of quantum mechanics.

See how light knocks electrons off a metal target, and recreate the experiment that spawned the field of quantum mechanics.

After analyzing photojournalist James Karales's iconic photograph of the march, reading background material on it, and considering what the marchers might have thought and felt, students write and illustrate a postcard describing this civil rights event from a marcher's viewpoint.

The students will play a classic game from a popular show. Through this they will see the probabilty that the ball will land each of the numbers with more accurate results coming from repeated testing.

Behind many of the apparently simple stories of Robert Frost's poems are unexpected questions and mysteries. In this lesson, students analyze what speakers include or omit from their narrative accounts, make inferences about speakers' motivations, and find evidence for their inferences in the words of the poem.

Poets achieve popular acclaim only when they express clear and widely shared emotions with a forceful, distinctive, and memorable voice. But what is meant by voice in poetry, and what qualities have made the voice of Langston Hughes a favorite for so many people?

This lesson is the second in a series of lessons called “Issues of Poverty.” Students explore the causes of poverty in the United States and the structural factors that perpetuate it. Students will examine the ways poverty is closely related to economic and political policy, and will work to discover why it disproportionately affects members of non-dominant groups—that is, groups that have historically oppressed groups.

As the story goes, in 1492 Christopher Columbus, an Italian sailor on hire for the Spanish, landed on the island of Hispanola and the world was never the same. While it is generally accepted that Columbus did not “discover America” (since there were already people living in the land that would become known as the Americas) it is generally accepted that his contact with the Native People of Hispanola and the later European movement brought technology and civilization to the Americas.

The Preamble is the introduction to the United States Constitution, and it serves two central purposes. First, it states the source from which the Constitution derives its authority: the sovereign people of the United States. Second, it sets forth the ends that the Constitution and the government that it establishes are meant to serve.