Learn about the techniques gold miners used to collect gold ore from the area around South Pass City, as well as the hazards they faced during the mining process.

In the accompany lesson plan (found in the Support Materials), students will watch a video that explains the mining process and hazards, and then create caution signs to show their understanding of the challenges the miners faced. Finally, the students will take part in a collaborative STEM challenge to build a working hoist using a limited amount of supplies.

LEARNING OBJECTIVES:

Students will develop grade level appropriate speaking and listening skills, as described by the standards.
Students will understand how technology impacted the mining process of early gold miners, as well as the hazards the miners faced.
Students will define a design problem and use limited resources to solve it.

Pairs of students respond to literature alternately in shared journals. Mini-lessons are presented on responding to prompts, creating dialogue, adding drawings, and asking and answering questions.

This lesson can be used with numerous pieces of literature, videos or cassette material to develop viewing and listening skills and the students ability to compare and contrast. One of the richest sources is in the area of fairytales and folktales. This an especially good source if you can find a modernized version in video or cassette form to contrast with the more traditional written form. I have used the "Frog Prince" because of this factor and because it was part of the 4th grade language arts reading unit.

In this guide, students’ exploration of AI is framed within the context of ethical considerations and aligned with standards and concepts, and depths of understanding that would be appropriate across various subject areas and grade levels in K–12. Depending on the level of your students and the amount of time you have available, you might complete an entire project, pick and choose from the listed activities, or you might take students’ learning further by taking advantage of the additional extensions and resources provided for you. For students with no previous experience with AI education, exposure to the guided learning activities alone will create an understanding of their world that they likely did not previously have. And for those with some background in computer science or AI, the complete projects and resources will still challenge their thinking and expose them to new AI technologies and applications across various fields of study.

Project 1: Fair's Fair
Project 2: Who is in Control?
Project 3: The Trade-offs of AI Technology
Project 4: AI and the 21st Century Worker

Visit the ISTE website with all the free practical guides for engaging students in AI creation: https://www.iste.org/areas-of-focus/AI-in-education.

The 4-day unit is designed to center on the voices of a marginalized community, Muslim Americans, as a foundation for students to explore and celebrate the plurality of values and identities in their own classrooms. Students will be engaging with journalism, practicing active listening, compassion, and empathy, and meet differences with curiosity rather than prejudice.

Students begin this unit by reading The Proudest Blue, a picture book by Olympic medalist Ibtihaj Muhammad that captures the challenges Faizah and Asiyah face when Asiyah wore her hijab to school. Students discuss discrimination and focus on the the hijab as a symbol of cultural identity.

Then students screen a short documentary film “Holding Fire.” The documentary follows Somia Elrowmeim, a naturalized American Yemeni immigrant and activist, who fights for the rights of South Brooklyn Muslims. The film provides a behind-the-scenes look at how grassroots organizing works especially during the modern Islamophobia period.

Driven by the courage and joy that Faizah, Asiyah, and Somia demonstrate in celebrating their cultures and standing up in their communities, students will explore these themes in their classroom. This mini-unit is being taught as a part of a longer classroom exploration of conflict and resolution.

In this unit from Central Valley School District in Washington, students dive into inquiry, engaging with compelling questions to help learn about the culture of some of their tribal neighbors and the forces that brought change to the northwest: fur trade era and exploration. The module includes detailed teaching notes for planning and executing instruction, emphasizing close reading of complex texts and specific strategies for supporting students' evidence-based reading and writing. It provides clear requirements for student work, along with summative assessments, central texts, key resources, and protocols to facilitate learning.

This module is designed for 3rd through 5th graders to explore their names, identity, immigration and cultural lore to find heroic moments in their family history. Using Icelandic immigration, both historical and current, as a model to explore: the meaning and uses of names, the difficulties of language, belonging and identity, and historical storytelling through "Egil's Saga", the student creates a personal definition of a hero. After learning basic interview techniques, the module includes interviewing a family member and identifying a heroic moment to portray through a student created comic. A gallery of comics is displayed for the community viewing including artists statements.

This professional development course consists of a series of workshops focused on NGSS-aligned & local phenomenon-centered curriculum, developed by IslandWood with funding from the OSPI ClimeTime Grant. It is currently structured to be delivered online and for Upper Elementary (3-5) educators. A slide deck and accompanying handouts are available to complement the course outline.