Free Teacher-Developed K-12 Open Source Curriculum

Eleven K-12 teachers have been recognized for their work by Curriki, as part of its 2010 Summer of Content challenge. The teachers have developed an instructional unit in science, technology, and math, and ELL/ESL for K-12 grades under this challenge. Cash awards have been awarded to the teachers by Curriki for the same. K-12 open source curricula are created and shared by the online community.

Teachers across the world can use or adapt these new instructional units to enhance their existing curriculum. These will not only save valuable time for teachers but also provide interactive and new ideas.

Instructional units, which included support material for teachers, were granted the 2010 Summer of Content awards. The support material provided was in the form of activities, WebQuests, worksheets, quizzes, and games that engaged students. Curriki has a rich and growing library of multi-media and text-based content. This also includes Khan Academy videos. Students along with parents and teachers therefore find Curriki reliable.

Valuable content has been contributed by this year’s recipients to Curriki.org. A scope and sequence or table of contents is included in each unit. Every unit also comprises of organized lessons with objectives. Online activities and/or handouts are provided with each unit for students and assessments.

Tiffanie Blake from Oregon has been awarded for technology unit ‘Enhancing Student Led Parent/Teacher Conferences with Technology’ for grades 6-8. A Science, Technology unit, ‘Light Emitting Diodes’ (News - Alert) has been created for grades 11-12 by Phillip Cook from Indiana.

For a Math, Technology unit, ‘Skee-Ball Statistics’ for grades 6-8, Joe Estephan from Canada is also a recipient of the award. Science unit ‘The Art and Science of Light and Color’ has been created by Sylvia M. Halsey from Oregon for grades 6-12.

Alexandria Lau from California has created ESL/ELL unit ‘How Do We Progress?’ for grades 11-12. Math unit ‘The Game of Real Life: Using a Sims Family to Learn Pre-Algebra’ has been created by Jesse Mercer, Virginia for grades 6-8.

Other award winners include Zachary Moore, California; Amudha Nagaramjan from India; Mickey Halsey Randall form Oregon; Judith Scharf from New York and Michelle van Ginneken, Canada.