Peer-to-Peer File Sharing
In this lesson, students will examine the state of Internet file sharing and copyright law. Building on the homework exercise from Lesson 2, students will decipher the various players who have a vested interest in the heated peer-to-peer (P2P) file sharing debate: technological innovators, the entertainment industry, lawyers, courts, educators, and, of course, the file-sharers.
Teaching Copyright
As today's tech-savvy teens become increasingly involved with technology and the Internet for learning, work, civic engagement, and entertainment, it is vital to ensure that they understand their legal rights and responsibilities under copyright law and also how the law affects creativity and innovation.
This curriculum is designed to give teachers a comprehensive set of tools to educate students about copyright while incorporating activities that exercise a variety of learning skills. Lesson t
Linkage Mapping a Mutation in Arabidopsis
Since Alfred Sturtevant constructed the first genetic map of a Drosophilachromosome in 1913, new mutations have been mapped using his method of linkage analysis. Determining the map position of a new mutation -- and its corresponding gene -- consists of testing for linkage with a number of previously mapped genes or DNA markers. Linkage is the principle that the closer two genes or markers are located to one another on a chromosome, the greater the chance that they will be inherited together as
Detecting a Transposon Tag in Arabidopsis
Throughout the first half of the 20th century, geneticists assumed that a stable genome was a prerequisite for faithfully transmitting genes from one generation to the next. Working at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in the post-WWII era, Barbara McClintock found quite a different story in maize (corn). She observed numerous “dissociations” – broken and ring-shaped chromosomes – and traced the source of these mutations to the short arm of chromosome 9. There she identified two relate
Dynamic Gene
Dynamic Gene is designed to let students learn about plant genomes by using bioinformatics to analyze newly sequenced genes in rice and maize. Many of these genes have only been predicted by computers and have never been closely examined by human beings! The site's name emphasizes the gene both as a dynamic structure that changes through evolutionary time, but also as a dynamic concept that changes with our increasing knowledge of genome organization. The design for Dynamic Gene recalls the "str
Columbia River Basalt Group, Washington, Oregon, and Idaho
This resource describes the Columbia River Basalt Group. The site features brief discussions of the stratigraphy and age of the group, as well as the group's vent system, volumes and eruption rates, and magma supply rates. This CRBG description is an excerpt from the ICG Field Trip T106: Cenozoic Volcanism in the Cascade Range and Columbia Plateau, Southern Washington and Northernmost Oregon: American Geophysical Union Field Trip Guidebook T106, p.21-24.
American Indian Population in South Dakota
The American Indian population in the U.S., S.D., and many other states has shown significant growth in recent decades. It is also a comparatively young population. In this module, you will look at these growth patterns, compare the size and age distribution of the American Indian population in the U.S., S.D., & several reservation counties (& your home state/county if you choose).
Cultura
Cultura is a Web-based, intercultural project situated in a language class, that connects American students with other students in different countries. It was originally created as an exchange between American and French students. Cultura has since been adapted to other schools and languages, connecting students in the US with students in Germany, Italy, Mexico, Russia and Spain. Following a common calendar, students explore together a variety of materials that progressively broaden their scope
The American Jury: Bulwark of Democracy
"The American Jury: Bulwark of Democracy" is a project of the Constitutional Rights Foundation Chicago and is the national expansion of "The American Jury: Past and Present," conducted in Illinois during 1998-1999. Beginning with a two-week institute in July 1999, "The American Jury" focused on the jury system in the United States. its role in American legal, social, and political life; its origins and history; its adaptations to changes in law and American society; its strengths and limitations
Introducing Copyright
A plain language guide to copyright in the 21st century
By Julien Hofman
Computers and the Internet have transformed the way we produce and distribute information and entertainment. And copyright is struggling to keep pace with these changes.
The authors of all kinds of works, from the humble email to blockbuster films, rely on copyright to protect what they produce. But authors and those who use their work are often unclear about what copyright allows and what it prohibits.
This book was wri
Mapping Margery Kempe
Margery Kempe's spiritual biography is often called the first autobiography in English. A married woman who attempted to live a life devoted to Christ, Margery sought official Church recognition for her status as a spiritual woman and mystic, while continuing to live and travel in the secular world. She experienced intense emotional visionary encounters with Christ, which have at times a strikingly homely quality. Her Book, dictated by her to a scribe, records these visions as well as her travel
From Silk to Oil: Cross-Cultural Connections Along the Silk Roads
This is a curriculum guide for exploring China's inner Asian frontier and one of the world's oldest and most important trade routes. The 350-page guide features five independent sections. Each examines the geography, ethnic relations and political history, exchange of goods and ideas, religions, or art along the Silk Roads (beginning in the second century BCE). Each includes lesson plans, documents, maps, and board game.
Ancient Eyes Looked to the Skies: Sunwatchers of the Southwest
A teacher guide of classroom activities for grades 4-8 focused on ancient solar astronomical observation and calendaring by early cultures, particularly in the American Southwest. Activities range from individual or small group projects to whole-class exercises. The activities are designed to have students engage in real scientific data-taking and analysis while at the same time getting a sense of how non-technological cultures observed and tracked the cycles of nature, particularly the Sun, lon
American Women's Dime Novel Project
Dime novels written by women were once enormously popular with their readers, but the genre has been neglected for most of its history by scholars, collectors, and libraries. The genre suffers from the double burden of being both popular and written for working-class women. This project hopes to overcome the history of oversight to both the form and its readers by providing information about the novels themselves, the authors, the readers, and nineteenth century public reaction.
This site is a
American Egyptomania
This website is devoted to exploring American fascination with Egypt and its history. Primary Source documents can be found by browsing the Historical Sources page or by searching through the advanced search page. Secondary literature that addresses topics such as art & architecture, history, literature, religion, and science can be browsed through the scholarship page. The web resources page contains a list of helpful websites related to the topics of the site and the search page is an advanced
Object of History
The Object of History is a cooperative project between the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History and George Mason University’s Center for History and New Media. The project was conceived of in an effort to find a low cost way for students and teacher of U.S. History to have access to the museum’s collections and the expertise of the curators. As a result the materials on the site are designed to improve students’ content knowledge of standard topics in U.S. History and to imp
The Lost Museum
We present this re-creation of PT Barnum’s American Museum as a lens into mid-19th century New York City and antebellum America. The Lost Museum website offers visitors a visualization and spacial interpretation of this extraordinary institution as well as an innovative way to learn and teach about the many issues and events of the period. The Lost Museum website is composed of four sections:|
“Who Burned Down the Museum?,” solve a mystery while exploring a 3-D environment|
“Explore th
Greek American Experiences Between Two Cultures
Greek American Experiences Between Two Cultures is an online oral history project that provides an opportunity for Greek Americans to record and access stories, anecdotes and personal histories via the world wide web. Through the modern technology of the internet, it is possible for site visitors to both post stories about their families' experiences as Greek Americans and to read about the experiences of others. Thus, the site serves as a unique and freely accessible archive of oral histories f
DoHistory
This site invites you to explore the process of piecing together the lives of ordinary people in the past. It is an experimental, interactive case study based on the research that went into the book and film A Midwife’s Tale, both based upon the remarkable diary of 18th-century midwife/healer Martha Ballard. Although DoHistory is centered on the life of Martha Ballard, you can learn basic skills and techniques for interpreting fragments that survive from any period in history.
Stereotypes of the French
This unit comprises four major lessons which are distinct yet cumulative. In the first lesson, the students will lay the groundwork for their examination of French stereotypes by generating those stereotypes themselves. They may draw, write, or find examples of what they think are "typical" French things. In the second lesson, they will be required to change perspective -- instead of being the examiners, they will be the examined culture. Students will look at various examples of stereotypes of
