Teaching Outside the Box

Meaningful learning pushes boundaries with action, inquiry, and innovation.

Curriculum and Resources: Rescue the Planet

by Stephanie McMillan

posted Dec 29, 2008

A comic strip by Stephanie McMillan with additional curriculum materials on analyzing comics and cartoons.

Connect and Engage: Addressing Fear

posted Oct 27, 2008

Here are lesson plans and how-to resources forcoming to terms with false assumptions about immigrants, the current economic crisis, and walls that separate important relationships. Simply put, it’s about addressing fear with clarity and calmness.

Connect and Engage: Elections

posted Sep 09, 2008

Use this election season to hone your students' skills in media literacy, deciphering political cartoons, and evaluating candidate voting records.

Debate Watching 101

by League of Women Voters

posted Sep 09, 2008

The League of Women Voters’ Debate Watching Tools include Debate Watching 101, How to Judge a Candidate, and a candidate scorecard. Watching a debate is more exciting as a group. So, gather your students and be part of history!

5 Ways to Make History

by Fran Korten

posted Jul 02, 2008

Elections aren’t until November. But the heart of the process is going on right now. Here are my top 5 ideas for making a difference—and staying sane—in the coming months.

Teaching with the News

posted Jun 02, 2008

The Choices Program’s Teaching with the News initiative provides online curriculum materials and ideas to connect the content of the classroom to the headlines in the news. Its twelve lesson plans cover a range of foreign policy and international issues, from analyzing U.S. efforts to combat terrorism to exploring policy alternatives for relations with Iran.

Teaching Climate: Digital Story Telling

posted Apr 04, 2008

BRIDGES to Understanding has developed teaching tools around the issue of Climate Change that focus on journaling and digital story telling for your students. As your students develop their stories you can follow the work of other schools on-line.

Lesson Plan Guidelines: Using YES! Stories in Class

by YES! for Youth Education Program

posted May 18, 2005

YES! for Youth curriculum materials are based on articles published in the pages of ad-free YES! magazine. They are designed to help students explore positive solutions to social justice and environmental challenges.

Questions for Students: Bringing Biodiesel from Colorado to Colombia

by YES! for Youth Education Program

posted Mar 10, 2005

Questions for reflection and discussion from the article "Bringing Biodiesel from Colorado to Colombia"

Into-Through-Beyond: a lesson-planning framework for using YES! in the classroom

by Kim Corrigan, Bob Davies

posted Aug 08, 2004

A brief outline of well-known planning technique that can help teachers make YES! content more meaningful, applicable and interesting to their students. Along with sharing the technique, we also provide an example of using it with a YES! article, and then offer some specific guidelines for effective curriculum planning.