This website was founded at Iowa State University to educate and engage citizens on the political process. The center brings national and international scholars, women leaders and political activists onto campus for programs, seminars and lectures.
Material Type: Lesson Plan
The purpose of this unit is to analyze the different ways that race and law have operated over the course of American history. The unit is designed to be implemented in a United States History course, but can also be used in a Civics classroom as a way of understanding the function of the law. The unit compromises of three main case studies 1) Racial Formation of Legal Code in Colonial America with the specific focus on the aims and goals of the Naturalization Law of 1790 2) The Prerequisite Cases of the 1920s and finally, 3)Anti-Miscegenation Cases and Racial Categories at the time of the Eugenics Movement in the 1930s and 40s. The purpose of weaving these different historical time periods together is to help students reshape the ways in which they look at the law and more importantly understand how race and law have worked together to shape the world in which we live. The different case studies can be introduced individually or used in a thematic manner.
Material Type: Lesson Plan, Unit of Study
This is a Teacher's Guide for The State We're In Washington: Your guide to state, tribal and local government. These quides are developed by members of the Washington State Social Studies Cadre. Chapter 7 focuses on local government: counties, cities, towns and special districts and their role, organization, duties and services they provide to communities.
Material Type: Activity/Lab, Lesson, Module, Primary Source, Reading, Student Guide
Students learn how young people in Washington exercised their rights and responsibilities through “fish-in” protests to fight for tribal fishing rights in the 1960s. Students use this example of civic engagement to reflect on their rights and responsibilities today, then begin to consider the unit-driving question: How can we use social media to engage community members on issues of injustice? Working in teams, students examine a case study on one of three critical issues: natural resources, the environment, or hazard preparedness. The case studies help students understand how social media can be used to raise awareness and promote action. Finally, teams create a social media campaign that engages their local elected officials and community on an issue of social and environmental justice.
Material Type: Lesson, Lesson Plan, Module, Teaching/Learning Strategy, Unit of Study
SYNOPSIS: In this lesson, students learn about deforestation and climate change and respond by writing an ode or an elegy. SCIENTIST NOTES: This lesson empowers students to understand what deforestation entails and how they can write poems to express their feelings of grief, respect, emotion, and valor in combating deforestation in their community. All materials used in the lesson have been verified and are suitable for teaching. In this light, this lesson is credible and recommended for the classroom. POSITIVES: -This lesson can be used as a standalone or as a lesson in a poetry unit. -Students are given voice and choice. -Students create their own poetic response to a real-world challenge. ADDITIONAL PREREQUISITES: -Students should have some basic understanding of poetry. -Students should have a basic understanding of deforestation and its connection to climate change. DIFFERENTIATION: -This lesson is easily adaptable to Advanced Placement or honors level classes by including other literary and language elements in the poems such as juxtaposition, oxymoron, consonance, assonance, enjambment, alliteration, and personification. -Students can write each stanza in a different meter or rhyme. Examples include iambic pentameter or ABBA rhyme scheme. -Teachers can split the lesson in two and focus on an ode in the first lesson and an elegy in the second. -Students can write both an ode and an elegy and compare the differences in writing, tone, and overall effect. -Social studies, civics, and economics classes can extend this topic to social justice, socioeconomic class, and cultural impacts of deforestation within each specific region. -Student poems can be shared outside of the classroom in the school newspaper or a community newsletter, on a class or teacher website, on school display boards, or in extracurricular poetry or environmental clubs.
Material Type: Lesson Plan
This is a Teacher's Guide for The State We're In Washington: Your guide to state, tribal and local government. These quides are developed by members of the Washington State Social Studies Cadre.This chapter focuses on the concept that when governing Washington today there is a need for a complex understanding of the cultural, economical, political, environmental, and ecological needs of our state.
Material Type: Lesson, Lesson Plan
Stanford University law Professor Richard Thompson Ford discusses the connection between race and clothing in the United States. He explains laws relating to dress codes and how clothing was used during the civil rights movement.
Material Type: Lesson
Students will be able to identify what is clickbait, and how it is used once the viewer engages. This lesson is part of a media unit curated at our Digital Citizenship website called "Who Am I Online?"
Material Type: Activity/Lab, Lesson Plan
A national leader in civic education, Kids Voting USA?? (KVUSA) gets students involved and ready to be educated, engaged citizens. Students learn about democracy through a combination of classroom activities, an authentic voting experience and family dialogue.
Material Type: Full Course, Lesson Plan, Teaching/Learning Strategy
In this lesson, students examine voting rights in the early years of the United States and the causes and effects of the first major expansion of voting rights, which took place in the late 1700s and first half of the 1800s. By the end of the lesson, students will be able to explain where various groups of Americans stood regarding the right to vote before the Civil War, and will hypothesize about what they expect happened next.
Material Type: Lesson
Definition and examples of national service. Created by Kimberly Kutz.
Material Type: Lesson
An overview of Personal rights. Created by Kimberly Kutz.
Material Type: Lesson
SYNOPSIS: In this lesson, students learn the impacts of climate change on birds, explore the effectiveness of public art on climate change awareness, and synthesize informational texts into a persuasive or argumentative essay. SCIENTIST NOTES: Bird species are suffering and facing extinction as a result of rising temperatures. Several species are slowly losing their range and changing shape and size. This lesson also establishes the possibility that a gradual rise in temperature could affect human survival, but it also gives students the opportunity to brainstorm and use their artistic talents to convey conservation strategies that would safeguard local wildlife and ecologically delicate species. This lesson is suggested for use in the classroom since the video, pictures, and materials are from reliable sources. POSITIVES: -This lesson can be used to teach students close reading or note-taking strategies. -This lesson can be used to focus on elements of persuasive or argumentative writing techniques. -This lesson can be easily adapted for writing workshops and the peer editing process in a multi-day or mini-unit. -This lesson can be done in the Spring or Fall when students can also observe local birds outside, or during state testing days as an independent or partner project. -This lesson can be used as a stand-alone lesson or as a lesson in a unit on non-fiction, birds, geography, art, or research. -Students are given voice and choice and can work independently or in pairs. -Students explore various media and guide their own learning with options for breadth and depth. -Students learn about local bird species in their neighborhood and region. -Students have two different options to create their own artistic responses. ADDITIONAL PREREQUISITES: -Teachers should be aware that the Audubon organization is named after John James Audubon and references his “complicated history” as an unrepentant slave owner and strong advocate for slavery. Students will explore this in the lesson, but teachers may want to preview the articles prior to the lesson. -Students should have some basic understanding of citing sources and referencing multiple resources in writing. -Students should have a basic understanding of the elements of persuasive or argumentative writing. -Students should have access to devices with a strong internet connection. DIFFERENTIATION: -Teachers can extend the research and writing portions of the lesson, using them to teach specific elements in persuasive or argumentative writing. -Teachers can provide paragraph or essay structures, graphic organizers, brainstorming, or outline templates for students to use. -Teachers can read one article in the Inspire section with the class as an anchor text or to model reading and note-taking strategies. -English teachers can choose to make the artistic element a separate class period, an extension, or extra credit activity. -Teachers can assign other articles from the Audubon website for extension activities. -Social studies, civics, and economics classes can extend this topic to discuss social justice, socioeconomic status, and cultural impacts. Students can research and discuss how other activists’ “complicated” backgrounds have impacted their messaging. -Music classes can listen to bird songs of birds from the Audubon website and compare the musicality and tonality of different bird songs in the same region.
Material Type: Lesson Plan
This lesson is the fourth in a series called Expanding Voting Rights. The overall goal of the series is for students to explore the complicated history of voting rights in the United States. Two characteristics of that history stand out: First, in fits and starts, more and more Americans have gained the right to vote. Second, over time, the federal government's role in securing these rights has expanded considerably.
Material Type: Lesson
John Dickerson introduces us to the 25th Amendment and explains why the Speaker of the House is second in succession to the President after the Vice President. John Dickerson is co-host of CBS This Morning. He was previously CBS News' Chief Washington Correspondent, Political Director and anchor of Face The Nation. Dickerson is also a contributor to Slate's Political Gabfest and to The Atlantic. During the 2016 presidential campaign, Dickerson moderated CBS News' two presidential debates. Prior to CBS, Dickerson was Slate Magazine's Chief Political correspondent and covered politics for twelve years for Time magazine.
Material Type: Lesson
There are three separate lessons on the three branches of government: executive, legislative, and judicial. We recommend teaching the government lessons in that order, as some content builds on a previous lesson. Covers civics test items 13, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 31, 47, and 55.
Material Type: Lesson Plan
A lesson for students to think about the neighborhood they live in and what makes a neighborhood.
Material Type: Lesson Plan
Racialized social control has adapted to race-neutral social and political norms in the form of mass incarceration. Criminalization stands in as a proxy for overt racism by limiting the rights and freedoms of a racially defined undercaste.
Material Type: Lesson
John Dickerson introduces the importance of midterm elections. John Dickerson is co-host of CBS This Morning. He was previously CBS News' Chief Washington Correspondent, Political Director and anchor of Face The Nation. Dickerson is also a contributor to Slate's Political Gabfest and to The Atlantic. During the 2016 presidential campaign, Dickerson moderated CBS News' two presidential debates. Prior to CBS, Dickerson was Slate Magazine's Chief Political correspondent and covered politics for twelve years for Time magazine.
Material Type: Lesson
John Dickerson explains why Ronald Reagan's presidency was so significant. John Dickerson is co-host of CBS This Morning. He was previously CBS News' Chief Washington Correspondent, Political Director and anchor of Face The Nation. Dickerson is also a contributor to Slate's Political Gabfest and to The Atlantic. During the 2016 presidential campaign, Dickerson moderated CBS News' two presidential debates. Prior to CBS, Dickerson was Slate Magazine's Chief Political correspondent and covered politics for twelve years for Time magazine.
Material Type: Lesson
