Classroom Resources

This resource provides 6 separate video clips of French speakers, each of which illustrates the task of expressing hypotheses. Students use interpretive listening skills to identify main ideas and examine how the conditional and past conditional tenses are formed and used through these authentic resources. The videos were prepared for intermediate and advanced level learners but could be used with novice learners as a way to introduce them to authentic language. Each video clip provides a French-language transcript and links to grammar reviews and activities for the concepts that are heard in the clip. The concepts covered include the conditional, conditional past, and si clauses.

This resource provides 3 separate video clips of French speakers, each of which illustrates the task of asking and responding to questions. Students use interpretive listening skills to identify main ideas and examine how questions are formed and used through these authentic resources. The videos were prepared for intermediate and advanced level learners but could be used with novice learners as a way to introduce them to authentic language. Each video clip provides a French-language transcript and links to grammar reviews and activities for the concepts that are heard in the clip. The concepts covered include:  interrogative and exclamative quel; interrogative pronoun lequel; interrogative pronouns; interrogative words: où, quand, comment; introduction to interrogatives; questions with subject/verb inversion; yes/no questions: est-ce que, n’est-ce pas

This resource provides 12 separate video clips of French speakers, each of which illustrates comparative phrases throughout the conversations. Students use interpretive listening skills to identify main ideas and examine how comparatives and superlatives are formed and used through these authentic resources. The videos were prepared for intermediate and advanced level learners but could be used with novice learners as a way to introduce them to authentic language. Each video clip provides a French-language transcript and links to grammar reviews and activities for the concepts that are heard in the clip. The concepts covered include: comparisons with adjectives, superlatives with adjectives, bon/meilleur vs. bien/mieux

This resource provides 21 separate video clips of French speakers, each of which illustrates how to use descriptions in conversation. Students use interpretive listening skills to identify main ideas and examine how descriptions enhance conversation through these authentic resources. The videos were prepared for intermediate and advanced level learners but could be used with novice learners as a way to introduce them to authentic language. Each video clip provides a French-language transcript and links to grammar reviews and activities for the concepts that are heard in the clip. The concepts covered include an introduction to adjectives; introduction to negations, gender, introduction to nouns, irregular adjectives, number - singular and plural, participles as adjectives, present tense, and relative pronouns.

This resource provides 6 separate video clips of French speakers, each of which illustrates the task of reacting, recommending, and making requests. Students use interpretive listening skills to identify main ideas and examine how imperative and subjunctive moods are formed and used through these authentic resources. The videos were prepared for intermediate and advanced level learners but could be used with novice learners as a way to introduce them to authentic language. Each video clip provides a French-language transcript and links to grammar reviews and activities for the concepts that are heard in the clip. The concepts covered include conjugations that take the subjunctive, imperative mood, irregular subjunctive, past subjunctive, regular subjunctive, and subjunctive usage.

This resource provides 3 separate video clips of French speakers, each of which illustrates the task of talking about future events. Students use interpretive listening skills to identify main ideas and examine how the future is formed and used through these authentic resources. The videos were prepared for intermediate and advanced level learners but could be used with novice learners as a way to introduce them to authentic language. Each video clip provides a French-language transcript and links to grammar reviews and activities for the concepts that are heard in the clip. The concepts covered include: regular simple future and irregular simple future

John Green teaches you how Russia evolved from a loose amalgamation of medieval principalities known as the Kievan Rus into the thriving democracy we know today. As you can imagine, there were a few bumps along the road. It turns out, our old friends the Mongols had quite a lot to do with unifying Russia. In yet another example of how surprisingly organized nomadic raiders can be, the Mongols brought the Kievan Rus together under a single leadership and concentrated power in Moscow. This set the stage for the various Ivans (the Great and the Terrible) to throw off the yoke and form a pan-Russian nation ruled by an autocratic leader. More than 500 years later, we still have autocratic leadership in Russia. All this, plus a rundown of some of our favorite atrocities of Ivan the Terrible, and a visit from Putin!

John Green examines how ideas like liberty, freedom, and self-determination were hot stuff in the late 18th century, as evidenced by our recent revolutionary videos. Although freedom was breaking out all over, many of the societies that were touting these ideas relied on slave labor. Few places in the world relied so heavily on slave labor as Saint-Domingue, France's most profitable colony. Slaves made up nearly 90% of Saint-Domingue's population, and in 1789 they couldn't help but hear about the revolution underway in France. All the talk of liberty, equality, and fraternity sound pretty good to a person in bondage, and so the slaves rebelled. This led to not one but two revolutions and ended up with France, the rebels, Britain, and Spain all fighting in the territory. Spoiler alert: the slaves won. So how did the slaves of what would become Haiti throw off the yoke of one of the world's great empires? John Green tells how they did it, and what it has meant in Haiti and in the rest of the world.

**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.

John Green talks about the many revolutions of Latin America in the 19th century. At the beginning of the 1800s, Latin America was firmly under the control of Spain and Portugal. The revolutionary zeal that had recently created the United States and had taken off Louis XVI's head in France arrived in South America, and a racially diverse group of people who felt more South American than European took over. John covers the soft revolution of Brazil, in which Prince Pedro boldly seized power from his father, but promised to give it back if King João ever returned to Brazil. He also covers the decidedly more violent revolutions in Mexico, Venezuela, and Argentina. Watch the video to see Simón Bolívar's dream of a United South America crushed, even as he manages to liberate a bunch of countries and get two currencies and about a thousand schools and parks named after him.

**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.

John Green wraps up revolutions month with what is arguably the most revolutionary of modern revolutions, the Industrial Revolution. While very few leaders were beheaded in the course of this one, it changed the lives of more people more dramatically than any of the political revolutions we've discussed. So, why did the Industrial Revolution happen around 1750 in the United Kingdom? Coal. Easily accessible coal, it turns out. All this, plus you'll finally learn the difference between James Watt and Thomas Newcomen, and will never again be caught telling people that your blender has a 900 Newcomen motor.

John Green teaches you about capitalism and socialism in a way that is sure to please commenters from both sides of the debate. Learn how capitalism arose from the industrial revolution, and then gave rise to socialism. Learn about how we got from the British East India Company to iPhones and consumer culture in just a couple of hundred years. Stops along the way include the rise of industrial capitalism, mass production, disgruntled workers, Karl Marx, and the Socialist Beard. The socialist reactions to the ills of capitalism are covered as well, and John discusses some of the ideas of Karl Marx, and how they've been implemented or ignored in various socialist states. Plus, there are robots!

John Green teaches you about European Imperialism in the 19th century. European powers started to create colonial empires way back in the 16th century, but businesses really took off in the 19th century, especially in Asia and  Africa. During the 1800s, European powers carved out spheres of influence in China, India, and pretty much all of Africa. While all of the major (and some minor) powers in Europe participated in this new imperialism, England was by far the most dominant, once able to claim that the "sun never set on the British Empire." Also, they went to war for the right to continue to sell opium to the people of China--twice. John will teach you how these empires managed to leverage the advances of the Industrial Revolution to build vast, wealth-generating empires. As it turns out, improved medicine, steam engines, and better guns were crucial in the 19th-century conquests. Also, the willingness to exploit and abuse the people and resources of so-called "primitive" nations was very helpful in the whole enterprise.

**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.

John Green teaches you about the war that was supposed to end all wars. Instead, it solved nothing and set the stage for the world to be back at war just a couple of decades later. As an added bonus, World War I changed the way people look at the world, and normalized cynicism and irony. John will teach you how the assassination of an Austrian Archduke kicked off a new kind of war that involved more nations and more people than any war that came before. New technology like machine guns, airplanes, tanks, and poison gas made the killing more efficient than ever. Trench warfare and modern weapons led to battles in which tens of thousands of soldiers were killed in a day, with no ground gained for either side. World War I washed away the last vestiges of 19th century Romanticism and paved the way for the 20th-century modernism that we all know and find to be cold and off-putting. While there may not be much upside to WWI, at least it inspired George M. Cohan to write the awesome song, "Over There."

**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.

John Green teaches you about World War II, aka The Great Patriotic War, aka The Big One. So how did this war happen? And what does it mean? We've all learned the facts about World War II many times over, thanks to repeated classroom coverage, the History channel, and your grandfather (or maybe great-grandfather) showing you that Nazi bayonet he used to keep in his sock drawer and telling you a bunch of age-inappropriate stories about his harrowing war experiences. So, why did the Axis powers think forceful expansion was a good idea? (they were hungry). So why did this thing shake out in favor of the Allies? Hint: it has to do with the fact that it was a world war. Germany and Japan made some pretty serious strategic errors, such as invading Russia and attacking the United States, and those errors meant that pretty much the whole world was against them. So, find out how this worldwide alliance came together to stop the Axis expansion. All this, plus Canada finally gets the respectful treatment it deserves.

**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.

John Green teaches you about the Cold War, which was occasionally hot, but on average, it was cool. In the sense of its temperature, it was by no means cool, man. After World War II, there were basically two big geopolitical powers left to divide up the world. And divide they did. The United States and the Soviet Union divvied up Europe in the aftermath of the war and then proceeded to spend the next 45 years fighting over the rest of the world. It was the great ideological struggle, with the US on the side of capitalism and profit, and the USSR pushing Communism, so-called. While both sides presented themselves as the good guy in this situation, the reality is that there are no good guys. Both parties to the Cold War engaged in forcible regime changes, built up vast nuclear arsenals, and basically got up to dirty tricks. If you had to pick a bad guy though, I would point out that the USSR had no intention of bringing Laika the Cosmonaut Dog home alive. That poor dog never had a shot.

**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

Craig Benzine teaches you about the United States Congress, why it's bicameral, and what bicameral means. Learn what the senate and house of representatives are for, some of the history of the institutions, and just how you can become a representative. It's not that easy.

Craig Benzine teaches you about federalism or the idea that in the United States, power is divided between the national government and the 50 state governments. Craig will teach you about how federalism has evolved over the history of the U.S., what powers are given to the federal government, and what stuff the states control on their own.

The United States didn't always have its current system of government. Actually, this is its second attempt. Craig will delve into the failures (and few successes) of the Articles of Confederation, tell you how delegates settled on a two-house system of representation, discuss the issues of slavery and population that have been embedded into our constitution, and how federalists and anti-federalist opposition provided the U.S. with a Bill of Rights.

In this episode, Craig Benzine talks about the importance of elections. He isn't going to focus on presidential elections, but instead those of the strongest part of our government: congressional elections. Craig will talk about the frequency of elections in the Senate and House, typical characteristics of a candidate, and the motivating factors that our congresspeople follow to get re-elected.

In this episode, Craig Benzine explores the leadership structure of congress. We'll break out the clone machine to examine the responsibilities of the speaker of the house, the majority, and minority leaders, as well as the majority and minority whips in both the Senate and the House. As the leadership heavily influences assignments to committees and acts as the primary point of contact with the media, they wield significant power in influencing the public dialog.

The process of how a bill becomes a law can be pretty complex. As if just getting through committee isn't difficult enough, bills have to navigate a series of amendments and votes in both houses, potentially more committees, further compromise bills, and even more floor votes, just to end up on the chopping block of the President. The President can stop a bill in its tracks with a veto, but a presidential veto isn't necessarily the end of a bill's life.

The periodic table is an essential part of any chemistry course. Its simple chart-like appearance belies the wealth of information that it contains. In this lesson, students learn about the origin of the modern periodic table of elements and explore an interactive version that teaches them how to extract information from it. This activity is the first of three lessons. The Strange World of the Electron and Repeating Patterns: The Shape of the Periodic Table will help to further students' understanding of this powerful tool.

The sound produced for a radio broadcast may take three different forms and travel dozens of miles before it comes out of your loudspeaker. This illustrated essay from A Science Odyssey Web site explains the conversion of electrical signals to radio waves.

See how a transmitter sends radio waves to a receiver, which turns them into electrical signals used to operate and control devices. Learn more in this animation from Design Squad Nation.

In this video excerpt from NOVA: "Hunting the Elements," New York Times technology columnist David Pogue explores how isotopes of carbon can be used to determine the age of once-living matter. Learn how variations in atomic structure form isotopes of an element and how the three natural isotopes of carbon differ from each other. Meet paleoclimatologist Scott Stine, who uses radiocarbon dating to study changes in climate. Find out what it means for an isotope to be radioactive and how the half-life of carbon-14 allows scientists to date organic materials.

In this episode, we talk about the three motivating factors of congressional decisions: constituency, interest groups, and political parties. We'll break down how each of these factors motivates certain actions like case work, public opinion polls, and logrolling.

According to Sapp and Emplaincourt, there are five physiographic sections in Alabama, three belonging to the Appalachian Highlands Region, and one each to the Inland Plains and the Atlantic Plain Regions.

**There are external links to each region with more information.

Learn about the judicial branch of government. It's pretty easy to forget that the courts, and the laws that come out of them, affect our lives on a daily basis. How are court decisions made, and where does each law's jurisdiction start and end? What are the three types of law? Find out in this episode.

Visualize the relationship between the binary code of 1s and 0s and an image with this interactive tool. Students can investigate relationships by testing how a code is used to create an image pixel by pixel and how the quality of a picture (its resolution) can be improved. A student assignment includes a brief reading to provide context on the code and an opportunity to test out a code with a partner.

Observe a group of children using light to communicate over a distance in this live-action video produced by WGBH. Use the video to observe strategies for using light to communicate across a distance as well as to design a light signal code to help you communicate to solve a problem from different locations.

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.

In this video from Kids Academy, students will learn about the laws, rights, and responsibilities of citizens. Students are introduced to how laws protect people and their property.

BAHHHHHH! Did I scare you? What exactly happens when we get scared? How does our brain make our body react? Just what are Neurotransmitters? In this episode of Crash Course Psychology, Hank takes us to the simplest part of the complex system of our brains and nervous systems--the neuron.

In this episode of Crash Course Psychology, we get to meet the brain. Hank talks us through the Central Nervous System, the ancestral structures of the brain, the limbic system, and new structures of the brain. Plus, what does Phineas Gage have to do with all of this?

What is the difference between sensing and perceiving? How does vision actually work? What does this have to do with a Corgi? In this episode of Crash Course Psychology, Hank takes us on a journey through the brain to better explain these and other concepts. Plus, you know, CORGI!

In this episode of Crash Course Psychology, Hank walks us through the troubling world of Eating and Body Dysmorphic disorders. There's a lot going on here and, even though we still have a lot of dots to connect, a lot we can learn to help ourselves and each other.