Focuses on a 1998 University of Nevada project in which forty elementary and middle school teachers learned about the National Council for the Social Studies (NCSS) "Notable Social Studies Trade Books for Young People" and the NCSS thematic strands. Highlights strategies that emerged from the project that integrates children's literature…

Illustrates the use of a module used in Mexican schools that focuses on survival on a deserted island. Explores questions related to inhabitants of the island, predator-prey relationships, identification of natural resources, water and food issues, and health considerations. (DDR)

Reports on the experiences of 12 students--three senior undergraduates majoring in chemical engineering, five master-level, and four doctoral students--in a course titled "Interdisciplinary Studies in Multi-Scale Simulation of Concrete Materials". Course objectives focused on incorporating team-oriented interdisciplinary experiences into the…

Discusses the use of historical research in a theater classroom. Describes a variation of this exercise in which students in a college history course study a play about U.S. History, write diary entries, research the era and place of the play, and give a group presentation. (CMK)

Discusses how to use music when teaching U.S. History. Provides examples such as teaching about the Civil War, the Great Depression, and the Vietnam War and showing the contributions of African Americans. Includes a discography. (CMK)

Describes a lesson in which students create collage insects inspired by the work of Eric Carle (The Very Hungry Caterpillar). Connects art, language arts, and science. Discusses how students make paper to use as the collage material and how students create the insects. (CMK)

Santa Clara University's Robotic Systems Laboratory conducts an aggressive robotic development and operations program in which interdisciplinary teams of undergraduate students build and deploy a wide range of robotic systems, ranging from underwater vehicles to spacecraft. These year-long projects expose students to the breadth of and…

Phase 9, a teacher-designed, classroom centered model, takes teachers through a nine-step process that results in the development of integrated instructional units. Teams of teachers come to an intensive five-day training with lessons they know work well with students. In interdisciplinary teams, they fold technology, state and national standards,…

Reform efforts are often unsuccessful because they failed to understand that teachers play a key role in making educational reforms successful. This paper describes a long-term teacher professional development (PD) program aimed at educating and training teachers to teach interdisciplinary topics using case-based method in science. The research…

"Lettuce Learn Math" is an interdisciplinary program that has effectively linked a small-scale agricultural production system to a sixth-grade mathematics and science curriculum. The mathematical concepts and skills, including measurement and geometry, taught in this project met and often exceeded the standards set by New York state for…

Students love a good story. That is why incorporating literary fiction that parallels teaching goals and standards can be effective. In the interdisciplinary, thematic six-week unit described in this article, the authors use the fictional book "The Deep Time Diaries," by Gary Raham, to explore topics in paleontology, Earth science, and creative…

This article discusses "Family Secrets," a problem-based learning (PBL) curriculum module that focuses on the bioethical implications of genetic testing. In high school biology classrooms throughout New York State, students are using "Family Secrets" to learn about DNA testing; Huntington's disease (HD); and the ethical, legal,…

Members of Teaching K-8's staff describe their visit to Brigantine Elementary School in Brigantine, NJ, where they were introduced to so many outstanding educators and enthusiastic volunteers that they wondered whether this was the "perfect school." Acknowledging that the school has some flaws, the Teaching K-8 staff note that Brigantine…

The great naturalist Edward O. Wilson's (1998) recent plea for the "consilience" of knowledge should strike a chord in the heart of every generalist. Invoking the unfinished agenda of the Enlightenment, Wilson has called for a rapprochement among the several branches of learning so that they can be viewed as interrelated and constituting a whole.…

The role of the speech-language pathologist (SLP) has developed considerably over the last 10 years given the medical and technological advances in life-sustaining procedures. Over time, children born with congenital, surgical, or "medically fragile" conditions have become mainstreamed into regular school-based settings, thus extending…