Browse these Teaching Resources – I think you’ll enjoy perusing this list of mostly free online teaching resources which I gathered from classes I took from Institute for Humane Education and networking with peers in VWs.
The best introduction to Humane Education is to watch the IHE founder’s video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t5HEV96dIuY
Dozens of Humane Education activities are available online, sorted by grade level at: http://humaneeducation.org/blog/category/resources/types/lesson-plansactivities/ I have aligned these lesson plans to the Common Core State Standards at: http://carlicann.blogspot.com/2012/03/humane-lesson-plans-for-common-core.html The state standards provide achievement guidelines without content; but humane education activities are content-rich and (I claim for obvious reasons) lead to highly engaged students and improved teacher morale.
To learn the philosophy and techniques of Humane Education, I recommend this book: “The Power and Promise of Humane Education” by Zoe Weil. I excerpted 3 key pages explaining how you can infuse your current lessons with Humane Education activities; I included useful lesson plan links here: http://carlicann.blogspot.com/2012/03/infusing-standard-curricula-with-humane.html
Online Book: Black Ants & Buddhists: Thinking Critically and Teaching Differently in the Primary Grades – extremely cool multicultural book about diversity and K-6 teaching.
Outstanding Peoples History lesson plans & resources you can filter by grade levels. http://zinnedproject.org/posts/category/list_resources/teaching-activity-pdfs
Education for Liberation Network (ELN) – an online database of social justice lesson plans and teaching resources. I found a useful search page with grade level filtering: http://www.edliberation.org/resources/edsearch_form
Some classroom activities from iEARN, a wonderful global educators network http://us.iearn.org/professional-development/professional-development-toolbox
Teaching Tolerance – very nice and easily accessible lesson plans from Southern Poverty Law Center. http://www.tolerance.org/activities
Radical Math – nice collection of web links and resources. Seems mostly written by others. Great concept! I might teach some of these, but would probably omit the “Radical Math” brand. http://www.radicalmath.org/
FacingTheFuture.org – Online teaching resources recommended by IHE. Requires user / school registration.
WebQuests are online student assignments, to perform Internet research and blog their findings (or other classroom activities such as papers and presentations). Design Patterns for WebQuests here. A large collection of online WebQuests, sorted by subject and grade and tools for authoring WebQuests are here.
http://www.storyofstuff.org/ – Very influential thoughts by Annie Leonard’s Story of Stuff Project
http://www.greenteacher.com/ – Green Teacher Online Magazine
http://www.rethinkingschools.org/index.shtml – Rethinking Schools – Online Magazine
http://www.myfootprint.org/ – ecological footprint quiz – builds awareness of responsible choices
http://www.greenamerica.org/programs/responsibleshopper/ – Responsible Shopper – Terrific investigative profiles of corporate controversies, a great resource for researching “True Price”
http://sourcewatch.org – nonpartisan information about front groups, propaganda, and think tanks – great for evaluating the veracity of sources – essential aide to critical thinking exercises
Some other favorite resources:
K-12 Economics/Finance Instructional Materials http://www.econedlink.org/lessons/economic-lesson-search.php?type=educator
Civics Education http://new.civiced.org/resources/curriculum
Activism Resources: The Ruckus Society http://ruckus.org/section.php?id=82
Numerous Additional Resource Links from IHE: http://humaneeducation.org/weblinks
Solutionary EDU 