In this activity students research roles as either Irish immigrants or African-American residents in the midst of the New York City Draft Riots that took place in July 1863. Students gather evidence from primary sources to develop their characters, based on actual census records, and then enact a role play debating whether to stay in the city or flee (if they are African American) and whether to participate in the riots or protect their black neighbors (if they are Irish immigrants).

In this activity students write original corridos(a type of Mexican folk song) based on the oral histories of braceros. Before writing their own corridos, students learn about the formulas and themes of corridosand analyze a World War II-era corrido. This lesson works best if students have basic background information on the bracero program.

In Part 1 of this unit, students will develop protocols for the collection of sensory data to address a guiding question. The data collected will consist of scents or sounds. The advantage of using sensory data is that students are equipped with the analytical equipment (ears and nose) and are familiar with its use. However, students may not have taken the time to consider the variety of perceptions that occur within a group of people who are sharing a sensory experience and the impact that variation can have when attempting to collect objective data to help characterize environmental problems.
Protocols are necessary to ensure consistency of data between collection points and between data collectors, and to link data collected to a research question. Protocols also serve as a record of the methodology used by an investigator that may be subject to scrutiny by subsequent data users or by anyone reading or using a report containing the data. Data collection in all scientific fields may be collected using protocols common within the field or developed by an investigator for use in a specific study.
Because sensory data is inherently qualitative and subjective, students will need to develop methods of quantification that ensure as much objectivity as possible. Likewise, scientists collecting field data may need to develop unique protocols that ensure that field data is collected in as objective a manner as possible.
Ideally, the unit will span two class sessions to allow for the gradual development of a data collection protocol and field plan.

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In Part 2 of this unit, student groups will plan and execute the field collection of sensory data (scents and/or sounds) using previously developed data collection protocols. The advantage of using sensory data is that students are equipped with the analytical equipment (ears and nose) and are familiar with its use.
Class time will be devoted to developing a field investigation plan. Students will create guiding questions and choose a study area, develop or obtain maps of the study area, assign field roles to group members, and develop a timeline for completion of fieldwork. The plan will need to ensure proper execution of data collection protocol, a clear record of the data collected, and a record of field conditions.
Careful planning of fieldwork is important to ensure that the time in the field is utilized efficiently and effectively and that the data collected meets the intended requirements. Likewise, an environmental professional (such as a geoscientist) undertaking an environmental investigation would need to develop a field investigation plan to meet the needs of the investigation.

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In this activity students perform a role play of immigrant mothers and daughters arguing over who should get to keep the daughter's wages. This activity is used to teach with the film Heaven Will Protect the Working Girl, but can be completed without the film.

In this activity students read poems written by Chinese immigrants to understand the hopes of and challenges faced by Chinese immigrants during the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. Then students write an original poem about the Chinese immigrant experience in the U.S. This activity uses materials in both English and Spanish and includes a word bank to help ESL/ELL students create their poems.

This PBL is designed for second grade students. To help understand our school and how to keep the students and staff healthy, the students will investigate different ways to prevent influenza germs from spreading. After considering each germ, they will have the opportunity to create evidence by researching and talking to different resources to come up with the best prevention method for our school.

In this activity, students compare World War II propaganda posters from the United States, Great Britain, Nazi Germany, and the Soviet Union. Then students choose one of several creative or analytical writing assignments to demonstrate what they've learned.

In this activity students learn about literacy tests and other barriers that kept black Southerners from being able to vote. Students also take a 1960s literacy test from Alabama.

Groups of 3-4 students work in parallel on different radiocarbon data sets in this project assignment; the content described here would comprise one group data set including a brief descriptive statement and bibliographic reference, raw data including errors, background lecture notes, and an example final poster presentation.

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In this activity, students are guided through a close reading of The Journal of Sean Sullivan: A Transcontinental Railroad Worker, a fictional book for young readers based on historical sources. Students will read a short excerpt from the beginning of the book and determine the meaning of key words. Working in groups, students will then read excerpts related to one of the following themes: working conditions of railroad builders; tension between immigrant groups; corruption of the railroad companies; conflict with Great Plains Indian tribes; and boomtowns. They will also complete an individual writing task on their theme. Finally, students will consider the positive and negative effects of the railroad on the country as a whole, as well as on specific groups of Americans.

This is a short experimental study of what happens to aluminum hydroxide, silicic acid, magnesium oxide, and calcium carbonate (or reagents of instructors choice) when they are heated to 110 and 1200 degrees.

Students determine the formula and calculate the mole percent and weight percent of each element and oxide in each reagent.
They heat the samples and calculate percentage weight loss or gain.
Finally, they write a lab report summarizing their results.

Be sure to have students save their samples for later use in a lab that introduces X-ray diffraction.

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In this activity students learn about the religious, class, and ethnic tensions between reformers and residents in the working-class Irish immigrant neighborhood of Five Points. Students research roles of a Protestant reformer and two Irish women debating whether the reformer should send Irish children to live with upper-class parents. This activity accompanies the film Five Points: New York's Irish Working Class in the 1850s, but parts of it can be completed without the film.

When piecing together the geologic history of the Earth, geologists rely on several key relative age-dating principles that allow us to determine the relative ages of rocks and the timing of significant geologic events. In a typical Historical Geology class or textbook, instructors/authors briefly discuss the important early researchers in the geological sciences, and then give the name of the stratigraphic principle, useful for relative age-dating of rocks and events, that these 17th and 18th century scientists are credited with discovering. After the instructor/author defines these principles, students are usually shown several examples so they can see how the principle can be applied.

But why not start with the examples and let students discover these principles for themselves?

Students are split into small groups which each work to discover a different relative age-dating principle. The groups are shown photos and given handouts with drawings of rock outcrops illustrating the various principles. These handouts include worksheets for which they must answer a series of prompts that help lead them to the discovery of their relative age-dating principle. Groups must also invent a name for their principle, and select a spokesperson who will present the group's results to the rest of the class.

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Students brainstorm in groups about specific topics covered in an introductory course, and then work together as a class to discuss the relationships of those topics to each other.

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This is an in-class activity where students learn about the interconnectedness of land use, water quality, and water resource management. Students are assigned a river front parcel of land to develop, unaware that each parcel is connected to someone else's parcel. Each team presents their development choices to the class and learns that all of the river sections are contiguous, leading to discussions about the effects of development and downstream water quality issues.

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Debbie Clark's 8th grade science students take several days to complete their Rube Goldberg contraptions. Bringing things from home, they experiment with the parts, design their contraption, and make a blueprint for it before beginning to build. This is a lesson that emphasizes cooperation, teamwork, creativity and design.

This brief activity leads students through analysis of an archaeologist's sketch of the grave of an African buried in colonial New York.

This resource explores the cultural context of scientific inquiry through an interdisciplinary lens. Undergraduate students are invited to follow two characters from William Shakespeare’s play King Lear who debate the cosmos with various scientists from the 17th – 20th centuries, including Galileo Galilei, Isaac Newton, and Marie Curie. The joined scientific / literary lens models how intellectual questions about knowledge and analysis often draw from interrelated traditions of thought and practice, and asks students to consider the nature of their own intellectual questions. The resource is broken into five brief modules and can be completed entirely in class, or in partial increments as take-home.