Students will learn about how the U.S. government classifies race and ethnicity. The teacher will play a video of students at Park East High School in New York City who contacted the U.S. Census Bureau to start a conversation about the way race and ethnicity are identified in census surveys. Students will also read a blog post explaining how the Census Bureau has changed the way it collects data on race and ethnicity. In the last part of the activity, students will write a letter that could be sent to a leader in their community with the goal of sparking some type of change.

" This course is an introduction to writing prose for a public audience‰ŰÓspecifically, prose that is both critical and personal, that features your ideas, your perspective, and your voice to engage readers. The focus of our reading and your writing will be American popular culture, broadly defined. That is, you will write essays that critically engage elements and aspects of contemporary American popular culture and that do so via a vivid personal voice and presence. In the coming weeks we will read a number of pieces that address current issues in popular culture. These readings will address a great many subjects from the contemporary world to launch and elaborate an argument or position or refined observation. And you yourselves will write a great deal, attending always to the ways your purpose in writing and your intended audience shape what and how you write. The end result of our collaborative work will be a new edition, the seventh, of Culture Shock!, an online magazine of writings on American popular culture, which we will post on the Web for the worldwide reading public to enjoy."

The following document analysis worksheet was designed and developed by the Education Staff of the National Archives and Records Administration. You may find this worksheet useful as you introduce students to written documents.

Although the American military was still enduring losses in 1780, the French were making a difference. The French navy was disrupting the British blockade. French commanders such as Lafayette and Rochambeau earned the respect and admiration of the American troops.

This unit introduces children to a number of concepts related to water. First, students activate and build on prior knowledge as they explore various places where water is found (e.g., lakes, rivers, swimming pools). In the second lesson, students differentiate between water found naturally (e.g., a lake) and artificially (e.g., a swimming pool). The third lesson focuses on the uses of water and its importance for human life. Next, students learn about the various states (solid, liquid, gas) that water can be found in. In the final lesson, students learn what people can do to conserve water and care for this natural resource. Throughout the lessons, students are exposed to songs and books about water. The unit culminates with as assessment that asks pairs of students to create a nonfiction question-and-answer book about a specific representation of water. Description of the assessment task with an optional technological application is also included.

Students will learn about the variation of toponyms in different regions of the Americas.

GeoInquiries are designed to be fast and easy-to-use instructional resources that incorporate advanced web mapping technology. Each 15-minute activity in a collection is intended to be presented by the instructor from a single computer/projector classroom arrangement. No installation, fees, or logins are necessary to use these materials and software.

This resource is published by Youth & Media.This learning experience has been created by Youth and Media and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International license. For more information, please visit: http://dlrp.berkman.harvard.edu/about. This "What Is Verification?" learning experience is inspired by the “Quick Start To Verifying Online Media” and “Verification Training For Journalists” courses by Dr. Claire Wardle at First Draft, available here.