Spotlight on Sources:
Welcome to Renzulli Learning’s Spotlight on Sources, some of our most engaging resources to excite and inspire your students!
Renzulli Learning provides your students with many outstanding “Type I” experiences – activities designed to expose students to a wide variety of disciplines, topics, occupations, hobbies, persons, places, and events that would not ordinarily be covered in the regular curriculum – as detailed in the Schoolwide Enrichment Model (SEM) by Dr. Joseph Renzulli and Dr. Sally Reis.
Now having students explore Enrichment Activities by Subject is easier than ever!
Have students go to My Enrichment Activities and scroll down to Personalized Activities by Subject. From there they can browse the Subject Categories based on their Profiler Results or they can do an Advanced Search to find Activities by Enrichment Type and Interest Area. Then use a keyword to get more specific!
Below are some of the most popular Activities in the category of Social Action that students accessed in Renzulli Learning during the last week.
K-2
How accessible are your school’s building and events to people in wheelchairs or those with vision or hearing impairments? Learn about disabilities, accessibility, and ableism. Find out how one artist changed the “wheelchair accessible” icon to challenge stereotypes. Then work with a classmate to create your own poster or skit to raise awareness.
Art, Activism, and Physical Disabilities
Run, jump, dodge, and duck through school so you can be an awesome UPSTANDER and stand up to bullying with this video from Go Noodle!
Awesome Upstander
Can you use waste or recycled materials to create a home for a small bird? Your birdhouse should include perches and a door, and it must be safe from cats and squirrels. Read the full instructions before you set to work.
Earth Friendly Birdhouses
3-5
Did you know that most people in North America use 50 to 70 gallons of water indoors each day. Seventy-five percent of that indoor water usage occurs in the bathroom! That is a lot of water each day! This resource has some amazing tips and tricks for conserving water. Do you have any other ideas how your community can impact water usage?
25 Ways to Save Water At Home
Elephant poaching is a tough issue to solve. Conservationist and 2016 National Geographic Emerging Explorer Gao Yufang is approaching the problem from a different angle: encouraging cross-cultural communication, bringing Chinese and Africans together to try to understand each other’s viewpoints regarding the elephant ivory trade.
Bringing China and Africa Together to Save Elephants
6-9
Have you read “A Long Walk to Water” by Linda Sue Park? Read about how one middle school was inspired by this book to raise more than $15,000 to provide an African Village with a well. What could your school do as a service project?
A Shorter Walk to Water
What comes to your mind when you hear the word, engineer? Kristen Hart thinks, “Adventure!” At this site she will explain how she became an air management engineer, and how she tries to protect the air from pollution. Learn about other environmental engineers, and how you can prepare for a career as one. Click the link to begin your adventures in engineering!
Adventures in Engineering
Scuba divers who explore the coral reefs near Belize keep a careful count of animal species. Study a table that presents their findings, and see what inferences and predictions you can make. Do you see any problems that need solving? Can you come up with a solution?
Analyzing Dive Data
10-12
Syndicated columnist Mark Shields and New York Times columnist David Brooks discuss the week in politics. Check out their discussions for insight into current Social Action issues!
PBS NewsHour: Shields and Brooks
Here you will find thousands of video lectures from the world’s top scholars. View lectures from universities such as Berkeley, MIT, and Yale. Browse by subject or scan the top-rated items. This site is updated frequently, so check back often. Browse the curated playlists to explore Social Action Issues.
Academic Earth
Each week, we will send you teaching suggestions and a few examples of our best and most popular resources. For more ideas to infuse enrichment activities with your curriculum, please visit the Unit Supplements on the Teacher Site, under “Teach.” We can also link these enrichment resources to your regular curriculum if you send us a theme or topic.
Thanks for being a part of the Renzulli Learning family and we hope you find these resources helpful.
Your Renzulli Learning Team