Little Ioda is like a reading machine who has to work quickly to save the day. Enjoy videos and games about simple machines as you learn to find the main idea from text clues or details and to ask and answer questions about non-fiction text.
Students observe waves propagate through deep water in videos and animations showing that waves transport energy, not matter. Students can make observations to describe wave motion through the water. This is a great engaging activity to use to introduce waves.
Observe and read about Earth’s cosmic neighborhood and objects found in space with this annotated slideshow of NASA images. This slideshow can pique students’ interest and provide opportunities to ask questions about various objects found beyond Earth’s surface as they consider what telescopes have revealed. This is a great activity to introduce objects in the solar system before students make their own models.
Support materials include Background Reading, Teaching Tips, and Discussion Questions. This resource was developed through WGBH’s Bringing the Universe to America’s Classrooms project, in collaboration with NASA.
Learn about the mechanics of solar and lunar eclipses with these videos and visualizations. Use this resource to view and engage with different ways of seeing how the alignments of the Moon, the Sun, and Earth result in eclipses and to provide opportunities for students to develop and use models or make evidence-based claims about eclipses.
Support materials include Background Reading, Teaching Tips, and Discussion Questions. This resource was developed through WGBH’s Bringing the Universe to America’s Classrooms project, in collaboration with NASA.
Learn about the mechanics of lunar eclipses with these videos and visualizations. Use this resource to view and engage with visualizations that show the alignment of the Moon, the Sun, and Earth from multiple perspectives and to provide opportunities for students to develop and use models and make evidence-based claims about eclipses.
In this lesson, students explore the experience of a total solar eclipse and learn about the mechanics of eclipses. The opportunity to observe a total solar eclipse in person is relatively uncommon; however, photographs and videos from August 21, 2017, total solar eclipse provide students a sense of the experience. Through an interactive lesson, students investigate the orbits and relative positions of the Moon, the Sun, and Earth to understand what causes eclipses and why they are rare. At the end of the lesson, students create a model to explain why lunar and solar eclipses occur in pairs.
This resource was developed through WGBH’s Bringing the Universe to America’s Classrooms project, in collaboration with NASA.
Investigate how the orbits and relative positions of the Moon, the Sun, and Earth produce eclipses using this interactive lesson. Students will work with a variety of models of the Earth-Sun–Moon system to understand the mechanics of lunar and solar eclipses and explain why they are rare.
This resource was developed through WGBH’s Bringing the Universe to America’s Classrooms project, in collaboration with NASA.
The associated lesson plan Experience a Solar Eclipse includes more supports for teachers and students, including handouts and materials for diverse learners.
This novice-mid Spanish activity combines emotions, personalities, and animals into a unique interactive unit. A Google Slide Presentation guides students and teachers through a warm-up, key activity, and wrap-up. During the warm-up students describe emotions using the provided emotion cards. Students then use interpretive reading skills to take a target language personality quiz and determine which animal best represents their personality. This quiz is similar to those studied in Psychology classes. Finally, students work in groups to use presentational writing and speaking skills to share their strengths and weaknesses based on their quiz results.
Join host John Green to learn about Vikings, one of our most requested subjects on Crash Course. Many of the preconceived notions you have about Vikings may not be true. They weren't simply pagan raiders striking terror into the hearts of defenseless European Christendom. They were some of the greatest travelers of their time, and they weren't always traveling to steal. In many cases, they were traveling to trade. John will teach you about Viking trade goods and Norse Mythology - and some blood, guts, and dragons for good measure.
**Contains material that may be sensitive for some students. Teachers should exercise discretion in evaluating whether this resource is suitable for their class.
This interactive German activity teaches students how to perform a traditional German clap dance. Videos of children performing the dances are provided along with written instructions for the dance. The included lesson plan encourages students to participate in the dance while listening to culturally appropriate music. While learning to present the dances students are introduced to products (music) and practices (dance) of the German culture. The lesson is geared toward upper elementary and middle school but could be adapted for older students who would enjoy the interactive experience as well.
Join host John Green to learn about conflict in Israel and Palestine. This conflict is often cast as a long-term dispute going back thousands of years and rooted in a clash between religions. As always, there is more to the situation. What is true is that the conflict is immensely complicated and just about everyone in the world has an opinion about it. Educate yourself by tuning in to this episode of Crash Course.
Join host John Green to learn about the human population. How many people can reasonably live on Earth? In 1800, the human population of the Earth passed one billion. Thomas Malthus posited that growth had hit its ceiling and that the population would level off. He was completely wrong, as there are currently seven billion people on the planet! John will teach a little about how Malthus made his calculations and explain how Malthus came up with the wrong answer.
**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.
This hands-on lesson provides examples in French but is easily adaptable for all languages. Students work in groups to design fashionable outfits for paper dolls. Once finished they use presentational writing skills to describe the outfit using clothing vocabulary learned in class and then present their script and outfit to the class. This lesson requires preparation ahead of time but a detailed list of supplies is provided along with a step-by-step lesson plan and student instruction sheet. The entire assignment is based on the popular television show Project Runway. Suggestions for extending the activity and for increasing difficulty for upper levels are included in the link.
Join host John Green to learn about Martin Luther and the Protestant Reformation. Prior to this event, almost everyone in Europe was part of the Roman Catholic Church. However, during Martin Luther's lifetime, the Church was in desperate need of spiritual and moral reform. Combined with the new ideas in the political and social scenes in Europe, this led Luther to leave the Church and start his own, which spread rapidly. Then, what started out as a doctrinal dispute turned into an all-out social revolt: peasants against landlords, and kings against the Catholic Church. Both politically- and faith-charged, this period had lasting repercussions on Christianity, politics, and social order.
**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.
Join host John Green to learn about water. People cannot live without water, which means it's absolutely necessary for civilization. In this episode, John talks about water in the context of classical civilizations, but not those of Greece or Rome. Instead, we'll explore the Maya civilization in Central America and the Khmer civilization in what is now Cambodia.
**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.
Students will review the Tempo words Presto and Largo. Worksheets are provided to show the difference between Largo and Presto. Students will create different movements to express fast and slow. Then, they will move to different pieces of music. Finally, students will describe the difference between Largo and Presto. Demonstration videos are provided.
Cows have adapted to an incredible range of environments as they have provided people with milk, meat, leather, and draft power. As a response to the many uses and habitats of cattle, a wide variety of breeds have been developed. Breeders of beef and dairy cattle carefully select cows from known breeds that will yield the most meat and milk. In this video from Nature, learn about the most desirable traits in both beef and dairy cows.
Natural Selection: Common Misconceptions reveals common pitfalls in the teaching of evolution through natural selection and suggests effective practices for identifying and addressing student misconceptions.
Fired Up About Energy explores common student misconceptions related to the study of energy and suggests methods for effectively representing and discussing the topic in the classroom.
Falling 101 investigates why and how things fall, and explores common student misconceptions about gravity, inertia, and air resistance.
Make it Rain! explores student misconceptions about phase changes, weather, and the water cycle, and reveals some of the pitfalls of common representations.
In this lesson, students learn about the characteristics that distinguish living things from nonliving things. By examining video clips and still photographs of a variety of objects and organisms, students gather evidence and develop criteria to decide if something is living or nonliving.
In this lesson, students learn about the life cycle of plants by watching a time-lapse video. This activity provides students with further evidence that all living things grow and change as they progress through their life cycle. Two optional video segments show students how to set up a germination experiment and how to grow seeds they collect on their socks.
Join host John Green to learn about the methods of writing history by looking at some of the ways that the rise of the West has been recorded. In the episode, we'll cover what the West is, the Rise of the West, and the different ways that historians and other academics have explained how the West became dominant in the world. Also discussed are explanations from Acemoglu and Robinson's Why Nations Fail, Francis Fukuyama's The Origins of Political Order, and Ian Morris's Why the West Rules, for Now.
Join host John Green to learn about the Mughal Empire, which ruled large swaths of the Indian Sub-Continent from 1526 to (technically) 1857. While John teaches you about this long-lived Muslim empire, he'll also look at the idea of historical reputation and how we view people from history. Namely, he'll look at the reputations of Mughal emperors Akbar I, who is considered to have made the empire great, and Aurangzeb, who is blamed for setting it up for decline. What really happened? Check out this episode of Crash Course to learn about these complicated situations.
**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.
Join host John Green to learn about the reasons World War I started and why the situation is so complicated. We'll try to get to the bottom of the confusion. However, it's very hard to assign blame to any one of the nations involved. Did the fault lie with Austria-Hungary? Germany? Russia? Julius Caesar? Join us for an interesting discussion in this episode of Crash Course.
**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.
Join host John Green to learn about World War I and the confusion surrounding its beginning. You'll learn about Franz Ferdinand, Gavrilo Pincep, the Black Hand, and why the Serbian nationalists wanted to kill the Archduke. While there's no good answer as to who exactly started the war, this episode of Crash Course will sort through the dates and confusion with lively discussion as always.
**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.
Join host John Green to learn about nation-building and nationalism in Latin America. Sometimes, the nations of Latin America get compared to the nations of Europe and are found wanting. However, this comparison doesn't quite work as the rise of democratic, economically powerful nations in Europe came about under a very different set of circumstances than the way nations arose in Latin America. Naturally, the regions are very different. But why? John will explore ideas, including whether or not a lack of international war could have impeded Latin America's growth. On the surface, this may not sound plausible, but tune in to this episode of Crash Course to hear a lively discussion on the topic.
Learn about the Gulf War, the U.S. military action to expel Iraq after it invaded its neighboring country, Kuwait. When the Iraqi leader, Saddam Hussein, ordered Iraqi forces to invade Kuwait, President George H. W. Bush made it clear that the United States would not stand for Iraq’s aggression. The Bush foreign policy team developed an international coalition that used military action to force Iraq out of Kuwait. This resource is part of the Statecraft: The Bush 41 Team collection.
**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.
Vivian Howard and “soul food scholar” Adrian Miller visit Black-owned Boogie’s Turkey BBQ in Elm City, N.C., in this clip from the How Do You 'Cue episode. Miller offers Howard a crash course in the Native American origins of barbecue and the unsung contributions of African Americans to cherished barbecue traditions.
Learn how one man is helping experts understand extremism with this video and educational resources from PBS NewsHour from August 29, 2016.
In 2012, American-born Jesse Morton was sentenced to more than 11 years in prison for his role in running a pro-jihadist website that inspired a number of terrorist plots, according to the FBI. Now, just four years later, Morton is free and has been hired as a terrorism analyst at a George Washington University think tank. At around the time of his arrest and while he was in prison, Morton began to have serious doubts about the path of violent extremism he had taken. While he says it is not an excuse, Morton’s childhood was tumultuous and wrought with abuse, which caused Morton to reject American culture and search for a new identity. Morton became radicalized and converted to an extremist form of Islam. He became extremely political and lived a dual life while attending Columbia University’s prestigious School of International and Public Affairs. Morton’s decision to go undercover and assist in counterterrorism efforts while in prison changed his path profoundly. “If I am willing to sacrifice in the past so much to promote such a disgusting ideology, then I think that, if I’m sincere in my reform, I should be as equally dedicated and equally passionate about trying to repair some of the damage that I have done,” Morton said. Top counterterrorism analysts in Washington soon sought him out for advice on how to identify suspected terrorists.
Learn about speakeasies and stock trading in Manhattan before the market crashed, with this primary source from American Experience: "The Crash of 1929."
Learn how technological innovations developed by MIT’s Radiation Laboratory, or “Rad Lab,” helped tip the balance of World War II to the Allied forces, in this video adapted from The Secret of Tuxedo Park: AMERICAN EXPERIENCE. Following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, hundreds of scientists and engineers rushed to develop an automated radar device to detect and track an enemy aircraft in flight. Microwave radar systems greatly improved the shooting accuracy of defensive weapons and were used to neutralize the German army’s fearsome V-1 rocket bombs.
Learn how the attacks on 9/11 shaped George W. Bush’s early presidency, transforming a commander in chief with little foreign affairs experience into a “wartime president” in these videos adapted from American Experience | George W. Bush. Use this resource to examine how the Bush administration viewed the threat of Muslim extremism prior to September 11 and how significantly the attacks changed both the president and his policy objectives.
Throughout 1929 daily papers reported that the future looked bright for investors -- even after the devastating market crash in October. Learn more with these primary sources, from American Experience: "The Crash of 1929."
