In this activity, students examine both the integrationist and the segregationist arguments of Brown v. Board of Education through role play and explore the Supreme Court's decision through primary source photograph analysis.
In this lesson, students analyze political cartoons and letters to the editor in order to identify the range of reactions to the Brown V. Board of Education Supreme Court decision and the ways in which the court's mandates were blocked. Students will also connect a current issue to the Brown V. Board of Education case.
In this lesson, students create posters to help identify the role of Howard University as an African American cultural center, the emergence of black lawyers as civil rights leaders, the importance of the NAACP, and the roles of Charles Hamilton Houston and Thurgood Marshall.
In this lesson, students research to gather information to create a radio broadcast about the five court cases that made up Brown V. Board of Education. Students will tell the stories of African Americans who demanded better educational opportunities for their children.
In this lesson, students identify and discuss the condition and aspirations of free African Americans in the years following the Civil War. Students identify the social factors that led to the rise of Jim Crow segregation and evaluate the effects of segregation.
In this lesson, students identify the purpose and goals of education in American society and explain why African Americans chose to challenge segregated education.
In this lesson, students simulate situations Japanese American children faced by creating a list of things that are important to them and choosing what they would take and leave behind to develop empathy for the Japanese American internment camp experience.
In this learning activity, students learn about the methods and tools necessary to conduct a genealogical interview to research women's history in their family.
In this activity, students will read about the Carnival in Ponce, Puerto Rico and about being a vejigante. Then, students will design their own Carnival costume.
This is a hands-on learning activity where students learn the meaning of imagery by examining images on two Pueblo pots and reading short excerpts from Native American folklore. They will design their own pots by creating symbols and explaining the meaning of the symbols.
In this learning activity, students will use their "senses" to see, smell, and feel what it would have been like to live on a prairie long ago.
This informational link includes 15 audio recordings by jazz greats and introductions that discuss the relevance of the songs.
In this lesson, students will be divided into groups and pretend to be a family being relocated to an internment camp. They will read from the online exhibit A More Perfect Union and make decisions about what they will take with them to the camp. After discussing with their groups, students will visit the "Reflections" section and write a response to at least one of the topics.
In this activity, students will read and respond to a quote by a woman who was forced to move into a Japanese Internment camp during World War II. Students will decide what they would take with them if they had to go into an internment camp.
In this learning activity, students will learn about women's history and making quilts. Students will make a quilt square in honor of a person who is important to them.
In this learning activity, students learn about Puerto Rico and Puerto Rican culture by creating their own Carnival mask.
In this learning activity, students make their own Koinobori (fish kite). These kites were an important way of life for Japanese American children in internment camps during World War II.
This is a collection of photographs and student activities that teach engineering skills by teaching students about the four forces of flight (drag, lift, weight, and thrust). Students are also challenged to a paper airplane test!
This collection includes videos, audio, photographs, activities, and lesson ideas to explore jazz and blues developed from the 1920s to the Great Depression and beyond.
This collection contains videos, articles, photographs, letters, and documents. This collection allows students to explore Japanese American internment and answers the question: What was life like for Japanese Americans in internment camps?
This collection includes videos, photographs, and articles about the Holocaust. Students can use this collection to explore what life might have been like during the Holocaust.
This collection includes photographs of jazz musicians Duke Ellington, George Wein, and Frank Sinatra.
This collection includes videos, photographs, and sheet music about jazz. Students can use the collection to explore the history of jazz in America.
By "programming" one another to draw pictures, students get an opportunity to experience some of the core concepts of programming in a fun and accessible way. The class will start by having students use symbols to instruct each other to color squares on graph paper in an effort to reproduce an existing picture. If there’s time, the lesson can conclude with images that the students create themselves.
The goal of this activity is to build critical-thinking skills and excitement for the course while introducing some of the fundamental programming concepts that will be used throughout the course. By introducing basic concepts like sequencing and algorithms to the class in an unplugged activity, students who are intimidated by computers can still build a foundation of understanding on these topics. In this lesson, students will learn how to develop an algorithm and encode it into a program.
Students will be able to:
- reframe a sequence of steps as an encoded program.
- explain the constraints of translating problems from human language to machine language.
Note: You will need to create a free account on code.org before you can view this resource.
This activity will begin with a short lesson on debugging and persistence and then will quickly move to a race against the clock as students break into teams and work together to write a program one instruction at a time.
Teamwork is very important in computer science. Teams write and debug code with each other, instead of working as individuals. In this lesson, students will learn to work together while being as efficient as possible.
This activity also provides a sense of urgency that will teach students to balance their time carefully and avoid mistakes without falling too far behind. This experience can be stressful (which is expected)! Make sure you provide students with the tools to deal with potential frustration.
Students will be able to:
- define ideas using code and symbols.
- verify work done by teammates.
- identify signs of frustration.
Note: You will need to create a free account on code.org before you can view this resource.
In this online activity, students will practice debugging in the "collector" environment. Students will get to practice reading and editing code to fix puzzles with simple algorithms, loops, and nested loops.
The purpose of this lesson is to teach students that failure is normal when learning a new skill. Students will be given pre-written programs that do NOT work. They will be asked to fix these programs. This process, called "debugging", teaches students essential problem solving and critical thinking skills. These skills transfer over as students proceed to harder and harder programming projects.
Students will be able to:
- read and comprehend the given code.
- identify a bug and the problems it causes in a program.
- describe and implement a plan to debug a program.
Note: You will need to create a free account on code.org before you can view this resource.
In this online activity, students will learn what events are and how computers use them in programs like video games. Students will work through puzzles making the program react to events (like arrow buttons being pressed). At the end of the puzzle, students will have the opportunity to customize their game with different speeds and sounds.
In this lesson, students will develop their understanding of events by making a sports-based game. Students will learn to make their paddle move according to arrow keys and make noises when objects collide. At the very end, they will get to customize their game to make it more unique!
Students will be able to:
- identify actions that correlate to input events.
- create an interactive game using sequence and event-handlers.
- share a creative artifact with other students.
Note: You will need to create a free account on code.org before you can view this resource.
As a quick update (or introduction) to using loops, this stage will have students using the repeat block to get Scrat to the acorn more efficiently.
In this lesson, students will be learning more about loops and how to implement them in Blockly code. Using loops is an important skill in programming because manually repeating commands is tedious and inefficient. With these Code.org puzzles, students will learn to add instructions to existing loops, gather repeated code into loops, and recognize patterns that need to be repeated.
Students will be able to:
- construct a program using structures that repeat areas of code.
- improve existing code by finding areas of repetition and moving them into looping structures.
Note: You will need to create a free account on code.org before you can view this resource.
This lesson builds on the understanding of loops from previous lessons and gives students a chance to be truly creative. This activity doubles as a debugging exercise for extra problem-solving practice.
This series highlights the power of loops with an array of puzzles meant to get students thinking about why repeat loops are superior to longhand.
Students will be able to:
- identify the benefits of using a loop structure instead of manual repetition.
- differentiate between commands that need to be repeated in loops and commands that should be used on their own.
Note: You will need to create a free account on code.org before you can view this resource.
By the time students reach this lesson, they should already have plenty of practice using repeat loops, so now it's time to mix things up.
While loops are loops that continue to repeat commands while a condition is met. While loops are used when the programmer doesn't know the exact number of times commands need to be repeated but does know what condition needs to be true in order for the loop to continue repeating. For example, students will be working to fill holes and dig dirt in Farmer. They will not know the size of the holes or the height of the mountains of dirt, but the students will know they need to keep filling the holes and digging the dirt as long as the ground is not flat.
As your students continue to deepen their knowledge of loops, they will come across problems where a command needs to be repeated, but it is unknown how many times it needs to be repeated. This is where while loops come in. In today's lesson, students will develop a beginner's understanding of condition-based loops and also expand their knowledge of loops in general.
Students will be able to:
- distinguish between loops that repeat a fixed number of times and loops that repeat as long as a condition is true.
- use a while loop to create programs that can solve problems with unknown values.
Note: You will need to create a free account on code.org before you can view this resource.
In this lesson, students will learn about until loops. Students will build programs that have the main character repeat actions until they reach their desired stopping point.
This set of puzzles will work to solidify and build on the knowledge of loops by adding the until conditional. By pairing these concepts together, students will be able to explore the potential for creating complex and innovative programs.
Students will be able to:
- build programs with the understanding of multiple strategies to implement conditionals.
- translate spoken language conditional statements and loops into a program.
Note: You will need to create a free account on code.org before you can view this resource.
The next four lessons provide an opportunity for students to put their coding skills to use in a capstone project. This project will help individuals gain experience with coding and produce an exemplar to share with peers and loved ones. Intended to be a multi-lesson or multi-week experience, students will spend time exploring brainstorming, learning about the design process, building, and presenting their final work.
In the explore stage, students will play with pre-built examples of projects in both Artist and Sprite Lab for inspiration. Next, students will learn about the design process and how to implement it in their own projects. They will then be given the space to create their own project in Artist, Sprite Lab, or another interface that they have become familiar with (this is likely the longest stage of the project). Finally, students will be able to present finished work to their peers.
This lesson will inspire students with realistic and entertaining ideas for their culminating projects.
Students will be able to:
- learn to plan in advance for an ongoing assignment.
- explain how system limitations can affect project design.
- describe how compromise can help keep a project on track and inspire creativity.
Note: You will need to create a free account on code.org before you can view this resource.
Over the course of four lessons, students will be building up to programming a project of their own design using either Sprite Lab or Artist as their programming environment. In this portion of the project, students will learn about the design process and how to implement it in their own projects. The lesson guide for all four stages of the process can be found in the first stage of this project process here.
Students may be ready to jump straight into building their projects, but this lesson will help shape their ideas into plans. This structure will keep the dreamers grounded and illuminate a path for those feeling left in the dark.
Students will be able to:
- shape ideas into reasonable goals and plans.
- recognize any potential obstacles such as time constraints or bugs.
Note: You will need to create a free account on code.org before you can view this resource.
Over the course of four lessons, students will be building up to programming a project of their own design using either Sprite Lab or Artist as their programming environment. Finally, students will be able to present their finished work to their peers or share with their loved ones with a special link. The lesson guide for all four stages of the process can be found in the first stage of this project process here.
At this point, students have worked very hard on their projects, so this lesson is meant to offer a space for the students to share their projects. This lesson will build a supportive community where students will build their own confidence and feel connected to their hardworking peers.
Students will be able to:
- indicate where each criterion point from the rubric is satisfied in the code for the finished culminating project.
- articulate the design process and how it helped shape the finished culminating project.
Note: You will need to create a free account on code.org before you can view this resource.
Students consider that while they are enjoying their favorite websites they may encounter messages from other kids that can make them feel angry, hurt, sad, or fearful. They explore ways to handle cyberbullying and how to respond in the face of upsetting language online. Students discuss all the ways they use technology for communication and explore the similarities and differences between in-person and online communication. Students then brainstorm ways to respond to cyberbullying.
This lesson will provide students with the tools that they need to handle cyberbullying if they are ever in the situation of having someone negatively responds to their online postings. Students may not ever have the misfortune of experiencing cyberbullying, but they should understand what it is so that they can spot it online. Students will learn how to identify cyberbullying and what steps they should take to make it stop. This may become helpful in later puzzles when students have the opportunity to share their work.
Students will be able to:
- empathize with those who have received mean and hurtful messages.
- judge what it means to cross the line from harmless to harmful communication online.
-generate solutions for dealing with cyberbullying.
Note: You will need to create a free account on code.org before you can view this resource.
