In this lesson, students are introduced to the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill. Through a hands-on simulation, students explore how birds are affected by oil and how wildlife rescuers help oiled birds.
This resource is a list of teaching ideas for activities to teach your students about the seasons.
In this lesson, students explore what lions, tigers, and leopards look like and analyze how the animals' coats help them survive in their different habitats. The students will discuss different big cats and their physical features, discuss the habitats of big cats, and how they survive in their habitat.
In this activity, students discuss the importance of senses and experiment using echolocation as an example. Students will understand that humans, animals, and robots use sensors to collect data from their environment and use that data to make decisions. They will also define the terms biomimicry and echolocation and explain how echolocation and sensors are used to collect data from an environment and can be applied to modern technology, like robots
In this video from PBSLearningMedia, John Green teaches students about the founding father and third president of the United States, Thomas Jefferson. Jefferson is a somewhat controversial figure in American history, largely because he, like pretty much all humans, was a big bundle of contradictions. Jefferson was a slave-owner who couldn't decide if he liked slavery. He advocated for small government but expanded federal power more than either of his presidential predecessors. John explores Jefferson's election, his policies, and some of the new nation's (literally and figuratively) formative events that took place during Jefferson's presidency. In addition to all this, Napoleon drops in to sell Louisiana, John Marshall sets the course of the Supreme Court, and John Adams gets called a tiny tyrant.
**Sensitive: This resource contains material that may be sensitive for some students. Teachers should exercise discretion in evaluating whether this resource is suitable for their class.
In this video from PBSLearningMedia, John Green teaches students about the War of 1812. The War of 1812 was fought between the United States and its former colonial overlord England. John will take you through the causes of the war, tell you a little bit about the fighting itself, and get into just why the US Army couldn't manage to make any progress invading Canada. The upshot: no territory changed hands, and most of the other bones of contention were solved prior to the actual war. Although nothing much changed for the US and England, the Native Americans were the big losers. Tecumseh was killed, and the Indian tribes lost a lot of territories.
In this video from PBSLearningMedia, John Green teaches students about the Market Revolution. In the first half of the 19th century, the way people lived and worked in the United States changed drastically. At play was the classic American struggle between the Jeffersonian ideal of individuals sustaining themselves on small farms vs. the Hamiltonian vision of an economy based on manufacturing and trade. In the early 19th century, new technologies in transportation and communication helped remake the economic system of the country. Railroads and telegraphs changed the way people moved goods and information around. The Market Revolution meant that people now went somewhere to work rather than working at home. Often, that somewhere was a factory where they worked for an hourly wage rather than getting paid for the volume of goods they manufactured. This shift in the way people work has repercussions in our daily lives right down to today. Watch as John teaches you how the Market Revolution sowed the seeds of change in the way Americans thought about the roles of women, slavery, and labor rights.
In this video from PBSLearningMedia, John Green teaches students about America's "peculiar institution," slavery. John will talk about what life was like for a slave in the 19th century the United States, and how slaves resisted oppression, to the degree that was possible. We'll hear about cotton plantations, the violent punishment of slaves, day-to-day slave life, and slave rebellions. Nat Turner, Harriet Tubman, and Whipped Peter all make an appearance. Slavery as an institution is arguably the darkest part of America's history, and we're still dealing with its aftermath 150 years after it ended.
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In this video from PBSLearningMedia, John Green teaches students about the presidency of Andrew Jackson. Jackson's election was more democratic than any previous presidential election. More people were able to vote, and they picked a doozie. Jackson was a well-known war hero, and he was elected over his longtime political enemy, John Quincy Adams. Once Jackson was in office, he did more to expand executive power than any of the previous occupants of the White House. He used armed troops to collect taxes, refused to enforce legislation and supreme court legislation, and hired and fired his staff based on support in elections. He was also the first president to regularly wield the presidential veto as a political tool. Was he a good president? Watch this video and draw your own conclusions.
In this video from PBSLearningMedia, John Green teaches students about various reform movements in the 19th century United States. From Utopian societies to the Second Great Awakening to the Abolition movement, American society was undergoing great changes in the first half of the 19th century. Attempts at idealized societies popped up (and universally failed) at Utopia, OH, New Harmony, IN, Modern Times, NY, and many other places around the country. These utopians had a problem with mainstream society, and their answer was to withdraw into their own little worlds. Others didn't like the society they saw and decided to try to change it. Relatively new protestant denominations like the Methodists and Baptists reached out to "the unchurched" during the Second Great Awakening, and membership in evangelical sects of Christianity rose quickly. At the same time, Abolitionist societies were trying to free the slaves. Americans of the 19th century had looked at the world they were living in and decided to change it.
**Sensitive: This resource contains material that may be sensitive for some students. Teachers should exercise discretion in evaluating whether this resource is suitable for their class.
In this video from PBSLearningMedia, John Green finally gets around to talking about some women's history. In the 19th Century, the United States was changing rapidly, as we noted in the recent Market Revolution and Reform Movements episodes. Things were also in a state of flux for women. The reform movements, which were in large part driven by women, gave these self-same women the idea that they could work on their own behalf, and radically improve the state of their own lives. So, while these women were working on prison reform, education reform, and abolition, they also started talking about equal rights, universal suffrage, temperance, and fair pay. Women like Susan B. Anthony, Carry Nation, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, the Grimkes, and Lucretia Mott strove tirelessly to improve a lot of American women, and it worked, eventually. John will teach you about the Christian Temperance Union, the Seneca Falls Convention, the Declaration of Sentiments, and a whole bunch of other stuff that made life better for women.
In this video from PBSLearningMedia, John Green teaches students about the Mexican-American War in the late 1840s and the expansion of the United States into the western end of North America. Famous Americans abound in this episode, including James K Polk (Young Hickory, Napoleon of the Stump), Martin Van Buren, Zachary Taylor, and Winfield Scott. You'll also learn about the California Gold Rush of 1848 and California's admission as a state, which necessitated the Compromise of 1850.
**Sensitive: This resource contains material that may be sensitive for some students. Teachers should exercise discretion in evaluating whether this resource is suitable for their class.
In this video from PBSLearningMedia, John Green teaches students about the election of 1860. As you may remember from last week, things were not great at this time in US history. The tensions between the North and South were rising, ultimately due to the single issue of slavery. The North wanted to abolish slavery, and the South wanted to continue on with it. It seemed like a war was inevitable, and it turns out that it was. But first, the nation had to get through this election. You'll learn how the bloodshed in Kansas and the truly awful Kansas-Nebraska Act led directly to the decrease in popularity of Stephen Douglas, the splitting of the Democratic party, and the unlikely victory of a relatively inexperienced politician from Illinois, Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln's election would lead directly to the secession of several southern states and thus to the Civil War. John will teach you about all this, plus Dred Scott, Roger Taney, and John Brown.
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In this video from PBSLearningMedia, John Green lists a whole lot of the battles of the US Civil War in seven and a half minutes. We get a lot of requests for military history, so we offer a list of battle names, with some commentary about outcomes and lots of really interesting pictures.
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In this video from PBSLearningMedia, John Green teaches about the Civil War. In part one of our two-part look at the US Civil War, John looks into the causes of the war and the motivations of the individuals who went to war. John also looks into why the North won and whether that outcome was inevitable. The North's industrial and population advantages are examined, as are the problems of the Confederacy, including its need to build a nation at the same time it was fighting a war. As usual, John doesn't get much into the actual battle by the battle breakdown. He does talk a little about the overarching strategy that won the war and Grant's plan to just overwhelm the South with numbers. Grant took a lot of losses in the latter days of the war, but, in the end, it did lead to the surrender of the South.
**Sensitive: This resource contains material that may be sensitive for some students. Teachers should exercise discretion in evaluating whether this resource is suitable for their class.
In this activity, students make a meerkat model while identifying unique body characteristics. Students learn how adaptations are crucial to a meerkat's survival.
In this activity, students brainstorm how people living along coasts harm ocean animals and plants. Then they analyze specific examples.
In this activity, students learn about the parts of a wave, wave height, and wavelength and then draw and label a wave.
In this activity, students learn about waves by comparing and contrasting photographs and watching a hands-on demonstration. Students will gather around a pan of water. Demonstrate how waves of different sizes are formed by tilting the pan in different directions and disturbing the water. Put a cork in the pan to represent a boat on the ocean. Ask students to describe how the cork moves as the waves change in size.
In this activity, students describe their experiences with beaches, compare and contrast photographs of beaches, and brainstorm how humans living near the ocean affect ocean plants and animals.
In this video from PBSLearningMedia, John Green teaches students how the Civil War played a large part in making the United States the country that it is today. He covers some of the key ways in which Abraham Lincoln influenced the outcome of the war, and how the lack of foreign intervention also helped the Union win the war. John also covers the technology that made the Civil War different than previous wars. New weapons helped to influence the outcomes of battles, but photography influenced how the public at large perceived the war. In addition, John gets into the long-term effects of the war, including the federalization and unification of the United States. All this plus homesteading, land grant universities, railroads, federal currency, and taxes.
**Sensitive: This resource contains material that may be sensitive for some students. Teachers should exercise discretion in evaluating whether this resource is suitable for their class.
In this video from PBSLearningMedia, John Green teaches students about Reconstruction. After the divisive, destructive Civil War, Abraham Lincoln had a plan to reconcile the country and make it whole again. Then he got shot; Andrew Johnson took over, and the disagreements between Johnson and Congress ensured that Reconstruction would fail. The election of 1876 made the whole thing even more of a mess, and the country called it off, leaving the nation still very divided. John will talk about the gains made by African-Americans in the years after the Civil War and how they lost those gains almost immediately when Reconstruction stopped. You'll learn about the Freedman's Bureau, the 14th and 15th Amendments, and the disastrous election of 1876.
**Sensitive: This resource contains material that may be sensitive for some students. Teachers should exercise discretion in evaluating whether this resource is suitable for their class
In this video from PBSLearningMedia, John Green teaches students about the Industrial Economy that arose in the United States after the Civil War. After the Civil War, many of the changes in technology and ideas gave rise to this new industrialism. You'll learn about the rise of Captains of Industry (or Robber Barons) like Cornelius Vanderbilt, Andrew Carnegie, John D Rockefeller, and JP Morgan. You'll learn about trusts, combinations, and how the government responded to these new business practices.
**Sensitive: This resource contains material that may be sensitive for some students. Teachers should exercise discretion in evaluating whether this resource is suitable for their class.
In this video from PBSLearningMedia, John Green teaches students about the massive immigration to the United States during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Immigrants flocked to the US from all over the world in this time period. Millions of Europeans moved to the US where they drove the growth of cities and manned the rapid industrialization that was taking place. In the western US, many Chinese immigrants arrived to work on the railroad and in mines. As is often the case in the United States, the people who already lived in the US reacted kind of badly to this flood of immigrants. Some legislators tried to stem the flow of new arrivals, with mixed success. Grover Cleveland vetoed a general ban on immigration, but the leadership at the time did manage to get together to pass an anti-Chinese immigration law. Immigrants did win some important Supreme Court decisions upholding their rights, but in many ways, immigrants were treated as second-class citizens. At the same time, the country was rapidly urbanizing. Cities were growing rapidly and industrial technology was developing new wonders all the time. John will cover all this upheaval and change and hearken back to a time when racial profiling did in fact boil down to analyzing the side of someone's face.
**Sensitive: This resource contains material that may be sensitive for some students. Teachers should exercise discretion in evaluating whether this resource is suitable for their class.
In this video from PBSLearningMedia, John Green teaches students about the Gilded Age and its politics. The Gilded Age started in the 1870s and continued until the turn of the 20th century. The era is called Gilded because of the massive inequality that existed in the United States. Gilded Age politics were marked by a number of phenomenons, most of them having to do with corruption. On the local and state level, political machines wielded enormous power. John gets into details about the most famous political machine, Tammany Hall. Tammany Hall ran New York City for a long, long time, notably under Boss Tweed. Graft, kickbacks, and voter fraud were rampant, but not just at the local level. Ulysses S. Grant ran one of the most scandalous presidential administrations in U.S. history, and John will tell you about two of the best-known scandals, the Credit Mobilier scandal, and the Whiskey Ring. There were a few attempts at reform during this time, notably the Civil Service Act of 1883 and the Sherman Anti-trust act of 1890.
In this video from PBSLearningMedia, John Green teaches students about the Progressive Era in the United States. In the late 19th and early 20th century in America, there was a sense that things could be improved upon. A sense that reforms should be enacted. A sense that progress should be made. As a result, we got the Progressive Era, which has very little to do with automobile insurance, but a little to do with automobiles. All this overlapped with the Gilded Age and is a little confusing, but people were trying to solve some of the social problems that came with the benefits of industrial capitalism. While progress was being made and people were becoming freer, these gains were not equally distributed. Jim Crow laws were put in place in the south, and immigrant rights were restricted as well. So once again on Crash Course, things aren't so simple.
In this video from PBSLearningMedia, John Green teaches students about Imperialism. In the late 19th century, the great powers of Europe were running around the world obtaining colonial possessions, especially in Africa and Asia. The United States, which as a young country, was especially susceptible to peer pressure, followed along and snapped up some colonies of its own. The US saw that Spain's hold on its empire was weak, and like some kind of expansionist predator, it jumped into the Cuban War for Independence and turned it into the Spanish-Cuban-Phillipino-American War, which usually just gets called the Spanish-American War.
**Sensitive: This resource contains material that may be sensitive for some students. Teachers should exercise discretion in evaluating whether this resource is suitable for their class.
In this video from PBSLearningMedia, John Green teaches students about the Progressive Presidents. The presidents most associated with the Progressive Era are Theodore Roosevelt, William Taft, and Woodrow Wilson. During the times these guys held office, trusts were busted, national parks were founded, social programs were enacted, and tariffs were lowered. It wasn't all positive though, as their collective tenure also saw Latin America invaded A LOT, a split in the Republican party that resulted in a Bull Moose, all kinds of other international intervention, and the end of the Progressive Era saw the United States involved in World War.
In this video from PBSLearningMedia, John Green teaches students about American involvement in World War I, which at the time was called the Great War. The United States stayed out of World War I at first because Americans were in an isolationist mood in the early 20th century. That didn't last though, as the affronts piled up and drew the US into the war. You'll learn the war's effects on the home front, some of Woodrow Wilson's XIV Points, and just how the war ended up expanding the power of the government in Americans' lives.
**Sensitive: This resource contains material that may be sensitive for some students. Teachers should exercise discretion in evaluating whether this resource is suitable for their class.
In this video from PBSLearningMedia, John Green teaches students about the United States in the 1920s. They were known as the roaring 20s, but not because there were lions running around everywhere. In the 1920s, America's economy was booming, and all kinds of social changes were in progress. Hollywood, flappers, jazz, there was all kinds of stuff going on in the 20s. John will teach you about Charleston, the many Republican presidents of the 1920s, laissez-faire capitalism, jazz, consumer credit, the resurgent Klan, and all kinds of other stuff.
In this video from PBSLearningMedia, John Green teaches students about the Great Depression. So, everybody knows that the Great Depression started with the stock market crash in 1929, right? Not exactly. The Depression happened after the stock market crash but wasn't caused by the crash. John will teach you about how the Depression started, what Herbert Hoover tried to do to fix it, and why those efforts failed.
**Sensitive: This resource contains material that may be sensitive for some students. Teachers should exercise discretion in evaluating whether this resource is suitable for their class.
In this activity, students experiment with batteries, wires, bulbs, and switches to assemble series and parallel circuits and to test for conductivity in sample items.
In this activity, students explore the parts of a circuit by modeling, as a group, a “human” circuit.
In this activity, students experiment with gear motion to understand how gears work to change the amount of force, speed, or direction of motion in machines.
In this activity, students locate and label geologic features of the ocean and explore the relationship of these features to plate tectonics.
