Teachers First - Thinking Teachers Teaching Thinkers

Johnson Virtual Tours are free 3-D tours inside the Johnson Space Center. Tours include the Space Vehicle Mockup Facility, Christopher C. Kraft Mission Control Center, Flight Control Room-1 (FCR-1), Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory (NBL), Ellington Field, and Lunar Sample Curation Laboratory. Questions and answers (Q&A) are also available to answer questions on Mission Control and Living in Space. When you are on the tour, you can watch videos, learn information, and see photographs.

tag(s): space (222), virtual field trips (128)

NASA's Glenn Virtual Tours are free 3-D tours inside the Glenn Research Facility. Tours include the Supersonic Wind Tunnel, Low Speed Wind Tunnel, Electric Propulsion and Power Laboratory, In-Space Propulsion Facility, Icing Research Tunnel, Ballistic Impact Lab, Flight Research Building, Propulsion Systems Laboratory, Simulated Lunar Operations Lab, Space Environments Complex, and Zero-Gravity Facility. When you are on the tour, you can watch videos, learn information, and see photographs.

tag(s): aeronautics (11), virtual field trips (128)

Great Lakes Now offers free five-minute virtual field trips to coastal wetlands, algae, and Lake Sturgeon. The website states that the videos are for grades 6-8 but could be shared with other grades if they cover the topics in the curriculum.

tag(s): habitats (92), virtual field trips (128)

NASA's Visual Universe website, part of Google's Arts & Culture Experiments, offers an interactive and visually stunning exploration of NASA's extensive media archive. This platform uses artificial intelligence designed to process large amounts of data, identify patterns, and group related content to analyze and organize over 150,000 NASA images, videos, and audio files into clusters of related content. Images of Mars rovers, audio from Apollo missions, and videos of spacewalks are organized into groups, making exploration more engaging. Teachers can guide students through activities such as exploring the visual history of space exploration, discovering thematic connections, and discussing the role of art and technology in science communication. The site is an excellent resource for integrating STEM with visual literacy and inspiring curiosity about space and innovation.

tag(s): artificial intelligence (177), space (222), STEM (297), visual literacy (3)

The Nature Conservatory is a free website that offers lesson plans on the following three topics: Protect Ocean, Land, and Freshwater, Provide Food and Water, and Tackle Climate Change for ages 11 through 14. Each of these topics has 1-5 lessons, including Reforestation: Impact on Climate, Fighting Fire with Fire, How Natural Areas Filter Water, and more. Each lesson comes with a teacher's guide that includes essential questions, a lesson overview, materials and resources, videos, vocabulary, handouts, and an evaluation. Lessons are aligned to the Next Generation Science Standards and the Common Core.

tag(s): climate (84), climate change (99), environment (252), sustainability (50)

The Nature Conservatory is a free website that offers virtual field trips and teacher resources. There are over fifteen virtual field trips, including Nature at Extremes: Great Salt Lake, Ocean Justice and Youth Advocacy, Working Trees: Reforestation and Responsible Forestry, Climate Heroes: The Power of Trees, You're the Scientist! Citizen Science, Frogs and Cicadas, Ridge to Reef: A Virtual Field Trip to Hong Kong, and more. Each teacher's guide highlights the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), materials, YouTube videos, suggested activities, questions for students, and websites to visit.

tag(s): conservation (102), environment (252), virtual field trips (128)

The Nature Conservatory is a free website that works to create a world where people and nature can thrive. The site offers free activities on exploring the natural world for each season, virtual field trips, a youth climate toolkit, resources for building a school garden, and a youth curriculum for ages 5-18. The youth curriculum is divided into sections: 5-11, 11-14, and 14-18.

tag(s): conservation (102), environment (252), virtual field trips (128)

Facing History & Ourselves Indigenous Rights and Controversy over Hawaii's Maunakea Telescope offers a free lesson on why the Native Hawaiians opposed its construction. The lesson gives a historical context for understanding the protests against constructing the Thirty Meter Telescope on Maunakea. The site includes two activities, a handout, articles, and videos. The lesson itself is adaptable and can be shared on Google Classroom.

tag(s): hawaii (9), native americans (109), telescopes (11)

Remini AI is a photo and video enhancement tool that uses advanced AI technology to restore old or blurry images, sharpen details, and improve resolution. The website offers a free version where you can enhance photos by watching ads, making it accessible for occasional use or small projects. This platform can be a useful resource for educational projects involving historical photos or creative presentations.
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tag(s): artificial intelligence (177), photography (130), Teacher Utilities (198)

Genially's Escape Room Game Templates provide educators with interactive and customizable digital escape room experiences. These templates allow teachers to create engaging, gamified learning activities where students solve puzzles, answer questions, and unlock clues to progress. The platform supports multimedia elements such as images, animations, and clickable objects, making lessons more immersive. Teachers can use these escape rooms for review sessions, team-building exercises, or subject-specific challenges across various grade levels.

tag(s): digital escapes (15), game based learning (205), gamification (83), puzzles (149)

Can your students save the planet and break free from this escape room? Use this template to create an engaging and interactive activity that takes students through four missions to learn about sustainability using windmills, forests, animals, and pole fusion. Each slide includes a text box with information to guide you through personalizing the content. Share this escape room with students as a presentation on your interactive whiteboard, or turn over the controls to students by inviting them to participate on their devices.

tag(s): conservation (102), digital escapes (15), game based learning (205), gamification (83), sustainability (50)

Explore this valuable tool for educators; it offers curated collections of primary sources, historical documents, and research materials across a wide range of subjects. These guides help teachers incorporate authentic historical artifacts, government records, and literary works into their lessons, enhancing students' critical thinking and research skills. With ready-to-use teaching resources, topic guides, and bibliographies, this site supports interdisciplinary learning and provides rich content for inquiry-based projects in history, literature, civics, and more.

tag(s): african american (115), architecture (75), black history (133), branches of government (65), civil rights (209), civil war (139), conservation (102), energy (133), engineering (129), environment (252), foreign policy (13), hispanic (36), industrialization (12), jews (33), latin (23), literature (221), middle east (50), native americans (109), nutrition (140), photography (130), politics (118), population (51), religions (95), Research (87), sports (82), statistics (121), Teacher Utilities (198), women (151), womenchangemaker (37), womens suffrage (52)

NPR (National Public Radio) is a valuable resource for educators, offering high-quality news, podcasts, and articles on current events, culture, science, and history. The site features engaging audio stories, in-depth journalism, and educational content that can enhance classroom discussions and critical thinking skills. Teachers can use NPR's stories to connect lessons to real-world events, introduce students to diverse perspectives, and encourage media literacy. Additionally, NPR's student-friendly resources, such as NPR Ed and Student Podcast Challenge, provide interactive and project-based learning opportunities.

tag(s): civil rights (209), cultures (180), journalism (74), news (229), podcasts (108), scientists (67), space (222)

Britannica's main website is a comprehensive and reliable resource for teachers seeking accurate, well-researched information across a wide range of subjects. It offers encyclopedia articles, biographies, timelines, images, videos, and primary sources, making it a valuable tool for classroom instruction and student research. The site includes Britannica School, which provides leveled content for different grade levels, and Britannica Kids, designed for younger learners. With its fact-checked, up-to-date content, Britannica helps educators enhance lessons, support inquiry-based learning, and promote critical thinking skills.

tag(s): biographies (94), primary sources (117), Research (87), resources (84), timelines (56)

The Do Now Activity Generator uses AI to create five-minute activities that engage students of any grade or content area. After selecting to start, enter the learning objective and grade level to generate activities. The Do Now generator provides students with questions based on a possible scenario. Make changes and find additional ideas by selecting the Request Change button and providing details on changes.

tag(s): artificial intelligence (177), assessment (147), classroom management (120), Formative Assessment (74), questioning (36), Teacher Utilities (198), teaching strategies (50), thinking skills (17)

The Nearpod blog post "How to Make a Digital Escape Room for the Classroom" provides educators with a step-by-step guide to creating engaging and interactive digital escape rooms. Learn how these activities can enhance critical thinking, collaboration, and problem-solving skills while making learning more immersive. The guide walks teachers through backward design planning, setting learning objectives, crafting clues and puzzles, and using digital tools like Google Forms, reviewed here and Nearpod, reviewed here to create an interactive experience. By following these strategies, teachers can design customized digital escape rooms that align with their curriculum and keep students actively engaged.

tag(s): collaboration (93), digital escapes (15), game based learning (205), problem solving (233), puzzles (149)

Test your knowledge of dinosaurs with this interactive escape room and template from Genially, reviewed here. As you journey through the escape room, answer facts about dinosaurs, complete a word search, and memorize a code to escape the maze as a final test. To modify the content, select "Use this template" to edit text, images, and animated features. Share this escape room with students using the URL embed code or social media options.

tag(s): digital escapes (15), dinosaurs (43), evolution (89), fossils (41), game based learning (205), geologic time (12), mysteries (23), timelines (56)

The Festisite Rebus Generator is an online tool that enables educators to transform text into engaging rebus puzzles, where words or phrases are represented through images and letters. This interactive resource supports multiple languages, including English, German, Danish, and Dutch, allowing diverse classroom applications. Teachers can input text, and the generator instantly creates a rebus puzzle, which can be customized further by using emoji characters or adding hints. Print the generated puzzles or share digitally, making them versatile for various educational activities, including digital escape rooms. Incorporating rebus puzzles into lessons can enhance students' problem-solving skills, reinforce vocabulary, and add fun to language learning.

tag(s): digital escapes (15), game based learning (205), puzzles (149)

View this cool tool that offers educators a suite of free tools to enhance classroom engagement through virtual escape rooms. These tools include a customizable Virtual Escape Room Timer for tracking game progress, a Random Group Generator to facilitate team assignments, a Team Name Generator to inspire creative team identities, and a Secret Agent Name Generator to add an element of intrigue to activities. Additionally, the site provides an Emoji Secret Message Maker and a Caesar Cipher Creator, enabling teachers to incorporate coded messages and puzzles into their lessons. These resources are designed to integrate seamlessly with existing curricula, fostering problem-solving skills and student collaborative learning.

tag(s): collaboration (93), digital escapes (15), game based learning (205), problem solving (233), puzzles (149)