Asserts that geography teachers teach how to derive information about history and culture from maps, photographs, and observations of real landscapes. Reviews four books: (1) "From Sea Charts to Satellite Images;" (2) "Historic Illinois From the Air;" (3) "Cultural Geography on Topographic Maps;" and (4) "US 40." Includes suggested student…

Describes a twelfth grade oral-history teaching project with multi-ethnic U.S. history senior students. Stresses that the project helps students think about and understand today's world by developing historical understanding. Activities include designing questionnaires, conducting interviews, writing biographical sketches, and producing a…

Presents a classroom project dealing with tropical deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon. Addresses environmental consequences and economic, social, and political causes. Involves both lectures and individual research and reports by student groups on deforestation causes. Includes a note-playing activity in which students make recommendations for…

Outlines methods for teaching social psychology in an interdisciplinary one-semester course. Stresses teaching theoretical perspectives, methods, and concepts. Makes suggestions for classroom application, reviews instructional materials, and suggests students participate in an experiment, survey, or observation study as a basis for discussion.…

Provides an organizational format for students to use when writing an ethnographic essay. Uses an organizing structure enabling students to produce professional written work in sociology. Outlines and identifies tasks to be accomplished in each section of a research report. (Author/NL)

Discusses an elementary social studies class project in which students wrote letters to older Russian and European immigrants who were learning their English. Reports that students also met with their pen pals and helped them prepare for their citizenship test. Describes the test as an excellent U.S. history overview. Emphasizes the compassion and…

A recent effort to bring the Total Quality Management approach into an upper-division economics course at the University of Wisconsin-Madison is described, focusing on three major elements: (1) proficiency-based customer focus, (2) student involvement in team research projects, and (3) continuous improvement through ongoing student evaluation of…

Describes the format for an interdisciplinary program of English/social studies (ESP) for eleventh grade honor students developed by the Coconut Creek High School (Florida). Promotes a thematic context for innovation and relies on cooperative learning. Provides the teacher-developed goals for the ESP program including learning outcome, present…

Provides a six-part lesson plan for use in secondary U.S. history classes. Illustrates the development of higher-order reading, writing, and thinking skills in assignments and projects dealing with the history of westward expansion. Specific skills addressed are comparison, contrast, prediction, and evaluation. Recommends cooperative learning…

A male minority-group high school student and a teacher at Putnam High School in Springfield (Massachusetts) share experiences with community service learning (CSL) projects. A project facilitator describes the plans for implementing CSL throughout the city. (SLD)

Contends that students enjoy social studies instruction more when new information can be personalized and reshaped into original material. Reports on the content and teaching methods used in an ancient middle east unit designed for the sixth grade. Includes three charts and one table that illustrate the instructional strategies. (CFR)

Describes a year-long project created and undertaken by a group of 14 eighth-grade girls to conduct interdisciplinary research on teenage sexuality and pregnancy. The project involved reading and discussing fiction and nonfiction, conducting interviews with teenage mothers, writing and publishing a booklet, and mentoring a group of fifth- and…

Describes the development of a yearlong plan to increase student reading in an elementary school media center. Discusses the involvement of families in literacy programs; extending services of the media center; community involvement, including readings by community leaders; students writing and publishing their own books; and reading clubs. (LRW)

Describes the Multicultural Project at a high school in Colorado that uses literature by people of color in the 11th-grade curriculum. Presents brief descriptions of four Latino/a and five Native American writers and their works. Discusses the many ways the Multicultural Project has added to that school's American literature curriculum. (SR)

Introduces a new way for students to evaluate the quality of sites on the Internet. Takes the students through six main points to accomplish this evaluation in the classroom. By following these guidelines, students can develop their critical-thinking skills about the quality of accessible technology. (MJP)