With support from the National Science Foundation, Science NetLinks has developed and reviewed a number of resources around the social, behavioral, and economic sciences.
Lessons (6-8)
Seeing Eye to Eye with the Umpire NEW!
Resource Type: Lesson
Grade Band: 6-8
Description: This lesson helps students develop an understanding of how a technology system that measures balls and strikes compares with the human vision system attempting the same task.
Endangered Languages
Resource Type: Lesson
Grade Band: 6-8
Description: This lesson introduces students to the science of linguistics and endangered languages.
The Illusion of Race
Resource Type: Lesson
Grade Band: 6-8
Description: In this lesson, students learn about the ways that we have classified and defined groups, as well as the basic genetic traits that we have inherited from our common ancestors.
My School as a System
Resource Type: Lesson
Grade Band: 6-8
Description: In this lesson, students apply the concepts of systems to their lives—in this case, their schools.
Lying
Resource Type: Lesson
Grade Band: 6-8
Description: In this lesson, students explore the many dimensions of lying and why people lie. Also to explore whether or not technology has changed our ideas or opinions about lying.
Exploring Learned and Innate Behavior
Resource Type: Lesson
Grade Band: 6-8
Description: In this lesson, students
explore the differences between learned and innate behavior among humans and monkeys.
Environment, Technology, and Culture of the Chumash People
Resource Type: Lesson
Grade Band: 6-8
Description: In this lesson, students develop an understanding of the interrelatedness of technology, culture, and environment as illustrated by the Chumash culture.
Learn to Think Like an Archaeologist
Resource Type: Lesson
Grade Band: 6-8
Description: In this lesson, students begin to think like an archaeologist by analyzing and interpreting artifacts from different time periods to simulate how archaeologists learn about people of the past.
Understanding Stereotypes
Resource Type: Lesson
Grade Band: 6-8
Description: In this lesson, students come to an understanding that assumptions can lead to stereotypes and unfair judgments about individuals and groups, and that stereotypes and biases affect our lives.
Lessons (9-12)
Belonging to a Group
Resource Type: Lesson
Grade Band: 9-12
Description: In this lesson, students explore the basic human need to belong to or choose certain groups and examine some of the stated and unstated purposes of those groups.
Influencing Cultures
Resource Type: Lesson
Grade Band: 9-12
Description: In this lesson, students explore what factors influence a change in culture amongst a community or group of people.
Novice Drivers
Resource Type: Lesson
Grade Band: 9-12
Description: In this lesson, students explore the concept of social trade-offs in the context of graduated driver licensing.
Social Class, Social Change, and Poverty
Resource Type: Lesson
Grade Band: 9-12
Description: In this lesson, students learn how sociological research and literature can add to their understanding of poverty.
Exploring Human History
Resource Type: Lesson
Grade Band: 9-12
Description: In this lesson, students explore how anthropologists go about scientific inquiry.
Immigration
Resource Type: Lesson
Grade Band: 9-12
Description: In this lesson, students
explore the effects of immigration on the immigrants and on society as a whole.
Opinion Surveys
Resource Type: Lesson
Grade Band: 9-12
Description: In this lesson, students are introduced to factors that can affect the accuracy of opinion surveys.
Population Dynamics
Resource Type: Lesson
Grade Band: 9-12
Description: In this lesson, students
investigate the causes and consequences of population growth and the environmental factors that contribute to it.
Genes, Environments, and Behavior 1
Resource Type: Lesson
Grade Band: 9-12
Description: In this lesson, students learn how scientists study the genetic and environmental factors that interact to produce variation in behavior across a population. Students focus on how scientists define behavior as well as on the genetic and environmental forces that shape it.
Genes, Environments, and Behavior 2
Resource Type: Lesson
Grade Band: 9-12
Description: In this lesson, students learn how scientists study the genetic and environmental factors that interact to produce variation in behavior across a population. Students focus on the various approaches scientists use to explore how behavior is shaped.
Tools
Chimps, Humans, Thumbs, and Tools
Grade Band: 6-8
Description: Here is a tool about tools! From the National Geographic, this lesson plan written for teachers includes hands-on activities that have students figuring out how to devise tools, use tools as an animal would, and manipulate objects without the use of their thumbs.
Dexterity and Early Tools
Grade Band: 6-8
Description: This tool from the PBS Evolution Library discusses how early stone tool making marks an important juncture in evolution.
Center for Desert Archaeology Online Exhibits
Grade Band: 6-8, 9-12
Description: This tool, developed by the Center for Desert Archaeology, consists of online exhibits that illustrate key concepts in preservation archaeology and the prehistory of the American Southwest and Mexican Northwest.
Chimpanzee Behaviors
Grade Band: 6-8, 9-12
Description: This site provides students with videos of seven featured chimpanzee behaviors, such as charging, displaying, and wrestling, documented at the Gombe National Park in Tanzania.
Conflict in the Modern World
Grade Band: 6-8, 9-12
Description: This module examines the role that conflict has played in the making of the modern world. It examines how conflict has affected our relationship with technology.
Exploring Nonverbal Communication
Grade Band: 6-8, 9-12
Description: This resource is an introduction to a video series on nonverbal communication that was produced by professor Dane Archer at the University of California at Santa Cruz. The web site offers quizzes that students can take to test their ability to read nonverbal cues.
Graph Skills For Introductory Economics
Grade Band: 6-8, 9-12
Description: This tool provides a pretest for students to assess their graphing skills before embarking on an introductory course in economics.
Greek Vase Painting Project
Grade Band: 6-8, 9-12
Description: This project, created by an archaeologist and a ceramicist, is multidisciplinary in nature and introduces students to Greek vase painting and culture.
Migration Station
Grade Band: 6-8, 9-12
Description: This resource from the National Geographic uses a virtual train station to promote understanding of why people migrate. The site includes maps showing migration patterns within Europe, including Ireland, Russia, Italy, France, Germany, and Great Britain.
Minority Scientists Network (MiSciNet)
Grade Band: 6-8, 9-12
Description: MiSciNet will be a boon to future women and minority scientists. It is part of Science's Next Wave, AAAS's career resource for graduate students, post docs, and young science professionals. It offers help for students deciding which careers in science may be right for them by providing articles by women and minorities in the sciences and features written by young minority scientists about their experiences in college, in graduate school, and at work. MiSciNet specifically targets African American, American Indian, and Latino students.
Population Pyramids and Us
Grade Band: 6-8, 9-12
Description: This activity introduces students to a basic tool in demography—the population pyramid—which is used as a blueprint for interpreting the dynamics of a population.
African Language Diversity
Grade Band: 9-12
Description: In this activity, students are introduced to the study of languages, known as linguistics, and explore the linguistic categorization of African languages—including an examination of the possible causes for and effects of such language diversity.
Can You Behave Randomly?
Grade Band: 9-12
Description: Chris Wetzel, from the Rhodes College Department of Psychology, created this resource to help students understand the concept of randomness by having them try to behave randomly. They do this by entering 100 coin-toss results online a number of times and having the results analyzed for randomness.
Economics Interactive Tutorials
Grade Band: 9-12
Description: This tool, created by Samuel L. Baker of the University of South Carolina, consists of 13 interactive tutorials on economics.
The Economics of Income: If You're So Smart, Why Aren't You Rich?
Grade Band: 9-12
Description: This tool should be used by all high-school students as they face decisions regarding their futures. Separated into three parts, this lesson helps students explore the relationship between education and income by asking the question, "Why do some people earn more income from their labor than others?"
The Economics of Voting: What Do You Mean, My Vote Doesn't Count?
Grade Band: 9-12
Description: From EconEdLink, this resource is a lesson in which students explore the costs and benefits associated with voting in national elections from an economics perspective, especially in regards to voters aged 18–20. The lesson specifically explains the concepts of rational apathy, rational ignorance, and expressive voting.
Economic Sectors and International Development
Grade Band: 9-12
Description: From EconEdLink, this resource is actually a lesson in which students, using the poverty rate as a measure of development, compare how resources are allocated to three economic sectors: agriculture, industry, and service.
Estuaries: Finding the Balance
Grade Band: 9-12
Description: Students can use this resource from the National Geographic to examine the conflict between development and the environment by focusing on estuaries across the United States.
Kinship and Social Organization
Grade Band: 9-12
Description: In this tool, students are introduced to kinship, defined as the most basic principle of organizing individuals into social groups, roles, and categories.
Map Machine
Grade Band: 9-12
Description: This MapMachine resource from National Geographic provides maps of basically any location on earth. Students can choose from four different categories of maps.
Peanuts & Crackerjacks
Grade Band: 9-12
Description: This tool teaches basic economics through the economics of professional sports (baseball, football, basketball, and hockey).
Thinking About Segregation and Integration: An Interactive Scientific Exploration Using Models
Grade Band: 9-12
Description: In this resource, students use a computer model to investigate how people tend to cluster into groups of similar people. This computer model is based on one published by economist Thomas C. Schelling in 1971 that explored patterns of racial segregation and integration in American cities.
The United States/Mexico Border
Grade Band: 9-12
Description: In this activity, students research daily life, industries, and the political situation along the United States/Mexico border. They conduct Internet research to learn more about what it might be like to live at the border and the controversies surrounding U.S. government policies along the border.
Unwrapping Mummies
Grade Band: 9-12
Description: In this activity, students are asked to pretend that they are a famous archaeologist who specializes in ancient mummies.
Virtual Laboratories in Probability and Statistics
Grade Band: 9-12
Description: The goal of this tool is to provide a set of web-based, standards-compliant resources for students and teachers of probability and statistics.
