December 2nd, 2022
High School Resource
This simulation will allow students to match shapes and numbers to earn stars in this fractions game. Students can challenge themselves on any level they’d like. Try to collect lots of stars!
Using the simulation, students will:
- Find matching fractions using numbers and pictures
- Make the same fractions using different numbers
- Match fractions in different picture patterns
- Compare fractions using numbers and patterns
Related NY State Academic Standards: 3.NF.1, 3.NF.2, 3.NF.3, and more!
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November 25th, 2022
High School Resource
Glaciers by PhET
This simulation will allow students to adjust mountain snowfall and temperature to see the glacier grow and shrink. they will use scientific tools to measure thickness, velocity and glacial budget.
Using the simulation, students will:
- Explain how environmental conditions (temperature and precipitation) impact glacial mass budget; identify where snow accumulates in a glacier and justify why.
- Explain how ice moves within a glacier; describe and illustrate flow within a glacier.
- Explain or illustrate (demonstrate) how glaciers
- stay at equilibrium
- grow/advance
- shrink/retreat
- form; compare climatic conditions leading to each.
- Determine and illustrate how multiple advance-retreat cycles affect the record of glacial end moraines.
Related NY State Academic Standards: MST4.C.ES.PS2.1 and MST4.C.ES.PS2.2!
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November 18th, 2022
High School Resource
This resource, from History.com’s archives, focuses on the Thanksgiving Day parade.
Related NY State Academic Standards: SS.8.4, SS.8.4.e, SS.E.1, and more!
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November 11th, 2022
High School Resource
Americans have gone to war to win their independence, expand their national boundaries, define their freedoms, and defend their interests around the globe.
This website from Smithsonian National Museum of American History examines how wars have shaped the nation’s history and transformed American society.
The site provides videos, art, primary source documents, and many other artifacts related to America’s military history. Using an interactive timeline, you can select from the following conflicts:
- War of Independence
- War of 1812
- Eastern Indian Wars
- Mexican War
- Civil War
- Western Indian Wars
- Spanish American War
- World War I
- World War II
- Korean War
- Vietnam War
- Cold War
- Gulf War
- War in Afghanistan
- War in Iraq
Related NY State Academic Standards: RH.9-10.1, RH.9-10.2, RH.9-10.3, and more!
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November 4th, 2022
High School Resource
This video series focuses on Roman art from the Louvre.
Related NY State Academic Standards: NAS.VA.Pr6.1.6.a, NAS.VA.Re7.1.8.a, ARTS.VA.C.3.1.GE.C, and more!
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October 28th, 2022
High School Resource
Authors Eric Brunger and Lionel Wyld detail the history of the Erie Canal from its first inception as an idea in 1700 to its completion in 1825.
This pamphlet is one of twenty-seven volumes in the Adventures in WNY History Series, which were produced based on the collections and archives of the Buffalo and Erie County Historical Society. The contents of the pamphlets, including the images, are copyrighted by the Buffalo and Erie County Historical Society. They can be used exclusively for educational purposes described under the federal copyright laws. Some original copies may be purchased from the museum shop.
This pamphlet is appropriate for students studying local, New York State, and US history.
Related NY State Academic Standards: RI.11-12.8, RI.11-12.9, RH.9-10.3, and more!
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October 21st, 2022
High School Resource
In this activity, you will,
- Test that your glucose test strips work with positive and negative controls. Follow the directions on your brand of strip, and dip strips into:
a) glucose solution positive control), and
b) water (the negative control). Wait for length of time specified by strip directions, then record any color changes of the strip and compare to the key on the bottle to determine glucose concentration of the tested fluid. If the strips determine that the glucose solution has NO glucose in it, or registers far less than 2%, the strips are defective and should be discarded. The experiment cannot be performed until new strips are obtained. Teachers may wish to check the strips prior to introducing this activity to their class. When performed by the class, the results of these controls should be recorded on the board for future reference.
- Pour about one half inch of regular milk (about 3 ml) and Lactaid (lactose free) milk into separate test tubes, one of each for each group, and label “A” and “B” to hide the identity of the fluids from the students.
- Determine the glucose concentration of “A” by following the directions for your brand of glucose test strips. Compare the color of the strip after dipping it in the milk (as per directions on the test strip bottle) with the color-coded key on the side of the bottle to determine the concentration of glucose in the milk.
- Determine the concentration of glucose in “B” by using a fresh test strip, following the directions on the bottle and comparing the color of the test strip after dipping it in the milk with the color-coded key on the side of the bottle.
- Class results should be tabulated on the board so that everyone can see them. Acknowledge that small variations between groups may be due to differences in how the procedure was carried out (for example; most strips require reading at an exact time after dipping; if students do not follow the instructions exactly, small variations in results may be obtained). Do not be overly concerned about small variations, as long as the water is “negative” for glucose and the glucose solution is “positive” for glucose.
- Add one drop of “mystery drops” to one half inch of “A” (the same “A” from step #3). Warm the milk by rolling the tube back and forth in your hands for 2 minutes. Repeat the glucose test with a fresh test strip as indicated in #3 above. Is the glucose concentration now the same or different as compared to the concentration in “A” prior to adding the “mystery drops”?
- Add one drop of mystery fluid to “B” (the same “B” from step #4 above. Warm the milk by rolling the tube back and forth in your hands for 2 minutes. Repeat the glucose test with a fresh test strip as indicated in #4 above. Is the glucose concentration now the same or different as compared to the concentration in “B: prior to adding the “mystery drops”?
- Tabulate class results on the board, as in #5 above.
- Explain your results. Is there a difference in glucose concentration between fluids “A” and “B” before addition of the “mystery drops”? Postulate as to what the difference means. Do the glucose concentrations of “A” and “B” change after the addition of the “mystery drops”? What could account for the change? At this point, students may conclude that somehow the “mystery drops” converted something in the regular milk to glucose. This may be true, but at this point one other possibility cannot be ruled out – see if the class can think of what that is. If they are unable to present an alternate hypothesis, prod them with the following: How do you know that the mystery drops are not glucose? The “mystery drops” are added to a substance which had a negative glucose reaction, and all of a sudden that same substance gives a positive reaction. Unless the mystery drops (I.e. lactase drops) themselves are tested with the glucose strips, no conclusions can be reached! Students should then test the “mystery drops” with the glucose strips. Add the result of this test to the data recorded on the board. Now what sort of conclusions can be drawn from the data?
Related NY State Academic Standards: S.MS.LS.1.1, S.MS.LS.1.2, S.MS.LS.1.3, and more!
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October 14th, 2022
High School Resource
This activity includes instructions for an in-class project about building model bridges and recognizing all the factors that building them incorporates.
Related NY State Academic Standards: MST1.I.SI2.1, MST1.I.ED.1.3, MST1.C.C.ED.1.3, and more!
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October 7th, 2022
High School Resource
Authors John and Richard Aiken trace the development of Niagara Falls as a source of hydroelectric power creating a legacy forever changing American life.
This pamphlet is one of twenty-seven volumes in the Adventures in WNY History Series, which were produced based on the collections and archives of the Buffalo and Erie County Historical Society. The contents of the pamphlets, including the images, are copyrighted by the Buffalo and Erie County Historical Society. They can be used exclusively for educational purposes described under the federal copyright laws. Some original copies may be purchased from the museum shop.
This pamphlet is appropriate for students studying local, New York State, and US history.
Related NY State Academic Standards: RI.11-12.8, RI.11-12.9, RH.9-10.3, and more!
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September 30th, 2022
High School Resource
For this activity, use a dictionary to look up the CAPITALIZED words and write a definition. The words are given in the poem’s format so students should try to understand the meaning of the word by applying it in context.
- Hear the SLEDGES with the bells
- In a sort of RUNIC rhyme
- the MOLTEN-golden notes
- a DITTY floats
- a gush of EUPHONY
- BRAZEN bells
- they scream out their AFFRIGHT
- in a mad EXPOSTULATION
- a RESOLUTE endeavor
- on the BOSOM of the PALPITATING air
- solemn thought their MONODY compels
- the MELANCHOLY meaning of the tone
- they are GHOULS
- a PAEAN from the bells
- Keeping time as he KNELLS
Related NY State Academic Standards: ELA2.I.LR1D and ELA2.C.LR1D!
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