How can filter bubbles limit the information we're exposed to? When we get news from our social media feeds, it often only tells us part of the story. Our friends -- and the website's algorithms -- tend to feed us perspectives we already agree with. Show students ways to escape the filter bubble and make sure their ideas about the world are being challenged. Approximately 50 mins.

LESSON OBJECTIVES: Define "filter bubble" and explain how it occurs. Reflect on the limitations and drawbacks that filter bubbles cause. Identify strategies for escaping their own filter bubbles.

Meet Oscar Ostrich. In this fable, Oscar Ostrich is taught to think about his future needs and set financial goals to become more confident about his financial future. The story is centered on the moral: "If you set and reach financial goals, your needs will be met in the future."

Students explore the concept of the mean as they examine and compare scores for various sports events.

How do we balance digital media use in our lives? We use digital media every day, from texting, streaming TV shows, and gaming all the way to using voice assistants or ordering our food online. For today's kids, it's a lot more than just "screen time." So how can we help students balance their online and offline lives? It starts with recognizing just how much media we use. Approximately 50 mins.

LESSON OBJECTIVES: Reflect on their common online and offline activities. Identify ways to "unplug" to maintain balance between online and offline activities. Use the Digital Habits Checkup routine to create a personal challenge to achieve more media balance.

Students explore the topic of "coming of age" through the story of a young man struggling to determine right and wrong in a world defined by violence.

How do we find credible information on the internet? The web is full of questionable stuff, from rumors and inaccurate information to outright lies and so-called fake news. So how do we help students weed out the bad and find what's credible? Help students dig into why and how false information ends up online in the first place, and then practice evaluating the credibility of what they're finding online. Approximately 45 mins.

LESSON OBJECTIVES: Learn reasons that people put false or misleading information on the internet. Learn criteria for differentiating fake news from credible news. Practice evaluating the credibility of information they find on the internet.

Students explore the American experience through the eyes of a young Latina girl as she struggles to define herself in relation to her community.

What does media balance mean for me? Helping kids learn what makes different media choices healthy or not is a good start. But how do we help them actually make responsible choices in the real world? Give your students the opportunity to create a personalized media plan. Approximately 45 mins.

LESSON OBJECTIVES: Reflect on how balanced they are in their daily lives. Consider what "media balance" means, and how it applies to them. Create a personalized plan for healthy and balanced media use.

In this video segment from Cyberchase, Harry has a fixed budget for clothing, so he must figure out what combination of jackets and pants he can buy with $100.

Inflation, unemployment, recession, and economic growth affect people in real ways. Through interactive lessons, this module teaches students about fiscal policy, the avenue by which Congress and the president attempt to influence the economy. Three modules that would further students understanding of the content are GDP and Pizza, The Unemployment Short Modules, and The Fed's New Monetary Policy Tools. This content from Econ Lowdown also features alignment to national Financial Literacy and/or Economics standards.

Inflation, unemployment, recession, and economic growth affect people’s lives. This module teaches students about fiscal policy, the avenue by which Congress and the president can attempt to influence the economy. Other modules that would further students understanding of the content are GDP and Pizza, Government Budgets, The Story of Unemployment, and Monetary Policy. This content from Econ Lowdown also features alignment to national Financial Literacy and/or Economics standards.

In this lesson designed to enhance literacy skills, students learn about the unique environment of southern Florida's Everglades and gain insights into the interrelatedness of living things, nonliving things, and climate.

Students often confuse skip counting with finding a rule or pattern for a given set of numbers. Here, they focus on how one number relates to the next and extend the pattern to determine the rule.

Prior to this lesson learners engage in the Arcadia Earth app’s Keep the Great Lakes GREAT section to build their understanding of the Great Lakes and its importance to all animals that call this area home, including humans. Next learners explore food chains with a hands-on activity, Linking the Chain. Students then synthesize what they know about the Great Lakes, food chains and how human behaviors can affect both.

Estimated time required: 1 class period.

Technology required for this lesson: Tablet or Smartphone.

Students gather simple data, represent it on a bar graph, and answer simple, complex, and open-ended questions about the data.

In this lesson, students will learn that minerals are a necessary part of our diet. They will learn that different minerals have different functions in the body. More specifically, they will discover that iron is necessary to carry oxygen around the body. In the associated activity, students will design a process that removes the most iron from the cereal.

What's the relationship between government and power? And how do the concepts of authority, legitimacy, and sovereignty influence that relationship? In this lesson, students are introduced to these key characteristics of government, consider how governments establish and maintain them, and analyze government forms to determine if and how each characteristic exists. LESSON OBJECTIVES: Explain how governments get their power, authority, legitimacy, and sovereignty *Analyze governments for key characteristics *Describe the relationships power, authority, legitimacy, and sovereignty share *Consider a government's legitimacy

What rights to fair use do you have as a creator? Kids can be voracious consumers -- and creators -- of media, and it's easier than ever for them to find and share digital content online. But do middle schoolers know about concepts like fair use, copyright, and public domain? Give students a framework they can use to better understand how fair use works in the real world. Approximately 50 mins.

LESSON OBJECTIVES: Define the terms "copyright," "public domain," and "fair use." Identify the purpose of the Four Factors of Fair Use. Apply fair use to real-world examples, making a case for or against.

Students learn the role of citizens and how they can influence the government. They measure the impact of their "citizen power" on each of the three branches and learn how to target the right government official with their concerns. (Note: This lesson will be most effective if students have some background knowledge of the three branches of government.)
LESSON OBJECTIVES: Compare the role of citizens in each branch of government by filling out a comparison table. *Compare the impact of citizens on the President, Congress, and the Supreme Court. *Describe the role of the three branches. *Decide whether a variety of citizen communications have targeted the correct government officials with their requests.

Students are exposed to general methods and strategies to recognize and generate equivalent fractions, and learn to compare fractions with different numerators and different denominators.