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All about STEM Comics, called Wild Things: An article type from Science News Explores

How can comic strips help teach experimental design of research studies? Use this lesson plan to learn about an article type called Wild Things that is published by Science News Explores in print and online. Wild Things use comic strips that tell the stories of research studies on animals’ biology and behavior. You can also access a lesson plan template that can be used with any Wild Things article.

Literacy Practice: 3-2-1 Strategy

Use this lesson plan and the provided template to have your students practice the 3-2-1 strategy. This literacy strategy is a quick way to check students’ understanding of a concept, reading or lesson. It helps them summarize and organize their thoughts by listing three responses to one prompt, two responses to another prompt and one response to a final prompt.

All about Technically Fiction: An article type from Science News Explores

Use this lesson plan to learn about an article type called Technically Fiction that is published by Science News Explores in print and online. Technically Fiction articles focus on a fictional phenomenon and explain whether it could be possible and the science it would take to make it a reality. You can also access a lesson plan template that can be used with any Technically Fiction article.

Literacy Practice: Concept Map 

Use this lesson plan and the provided template to have your students practice creating concept maps for any article. This literacy strategy boosts critical thinking and reading retention by having students organize information and connect important ideas, concepts and terms.

How do we remember events in history?

According to a 2022 study, people in the United States often included Thanksgiving as an event important to the country’s foundation along with the Revolutionary War, the Declaration of Independence, Christopher Columbus’s “discovery” of the Americas, the Civil War and British colonization. But the events in most people’s narrative of the first Thanksgiving run contrary to history. Thanksgiving myths abound because their memory is rooted in story. While such origin stories tend to unify people, they sometimes misrepresent the truth. Tidy tales of history sometimes appear in books and museum exhibits, preserving the group narrative and identity.

All about Explainers: An article type from Science News Explores

Use this lesson plan to learn about an article type called Explainers that is published by Science News Explores in print and online. You can also access a lesson plan template that can be used with any Explainer article. Explainer articles take a deep dive into a key scientific concept or process.

Literacy Practice: Cornell Note-Taking System

Use this lesson plan and the provided template to have your students practice the Cornell Note-taking System with any article. This literacy strategy organizes notes into two columns that provide structure for note-taking, analysis and review and that will help increase students’ learning, comprehension and retention.

Covering data literacy

Students will work in groups to answer questions about graphs and data visualizations. Then, they will discuss data literacy and how graphs can promote misinformation

Social Media Smarts

Social media is part of our everyday lives. It provides entertainment, news, reference information, and so much more. However, not all the content we find on social media is accurate. In this activity, students will investigate the prevalence of misinformation on popular social media platforms. In their investigation, students examine how platforms’ biases and algorithms influence the type of content social media users see and the level of misinformation displayed.

Solving Hard-to-Reach Problems with ROVs

Remotely operated vehicles, or ROVs, are often used in environments that would be unsafe or difficult for people to enter to explore. In this activity, students will think critically about how engineering practices can be used to monitor environmental issues or solve real-world problems before designing and modeling an ROV that could be used to investigate a real-world problem impacting their local environment.

Homework Help? ChatGPT is Poised to Disrupt Education

Playing around with ChatGPT is enormously fun, and the technology can be useful. But there are pitfalls too. In this Guide, students will learn about AI and the benefits and challenges posed by the chatbot.

Cultural Connections for Species at Risk

In the face of habitat loss and pollution, more species around the world are threatened by extinction. But how should conservation resources be allocated? In this activity, students will debate whether the allocation of conservation resources should consider the cultural significance of a species.