This two-to-three-week unit, designed for Kindergarten students, introduces aspects of Ukrainian material culture through the story The Mitten. Students will hear and learn two versions of the folktale – one retold by Alvin Tresselt from 1964 and the second by Jan Brett in 1989. Through the rich illustrations, each story uses strong and clear examples of Ukrainian objects from home life, clothing, and everyday items. The Mitten will serve as a foundation for several discussions, including topics such as animals, size and volume, patterns and designs, story sequencing, and even role-playing. Students will design their own mittens, create animal cards to tell the story, make animal masks to act out the story, and decorate a vyshyvanka – an iconic traditional Ukrainian embroidered shirt.

(Developed for Literacy and Social Studies, grade K; recommended for Literacy and Social Studies, grades K-2)

In this unit, students are asked to examine Sandra Cisneros’s work The House on Mango Street through object study to improve their writing skills and their understanding of symbolism. Throughout the course of the unit, students will use a modified form of Jules Prown’s material culture theory to study objects in order to develop greater understanding of the objective, write in more detail, and delve deeper into symbolism. Students will use their object study notes to build descriptions of the objects that they will use to write object biographies at the conclusion of the unit. In addition, students will create material examples of the house on Mango Street in order to show their understanding of symbolism and to use the object study process to examine the work of their peers.

(Developed for Language Arts, grade 8; recommended for Language Arts, grade 7)

This unit is designed for 5th-grade students and aims to develop cultural awareness by exploring the rich heritage of Spain through the in-depth analysis of elements found in its traditional legends and festivities. Through the study of well-known stories, such as “The Lady of Elche,” “The Lovers of Teruel,” “The Lizard of La Malena,” and “Saint George and the Dragon,” students will identify and examine key narrative components, including historical context, characters, fantastic elements, conflict, resolution, and moral messages. Special attention will be given to the symbolism in each legend and its reflection of cultural and societal values.

Simultaneously, the unit will address major traditional celebrations from different Spanish regions, including Las Fallas, San Fermín, and La Tomatina. Students will analyze the origins, evolution, and defining elements of these festivities—costumes, music, food, and rituals—understanding their role as collective expressions of cultural identity, memory, and community celebration. Comparative activities will encourage students to reflect critically on cultural similarities and differences between Spanish traditions and those of their own or other cultures.

Learning activities will include guided readings, literary analysis, class discussions, dramatizations, creative writing, and the development of oral and visual presentations. Audiovisual and digital resources will support student inquiry and enhance content comprehension.

This unit fosters intercultural understanding, oral and written expression, and appreciation for cultural diversity. By the end of the unit, students are expected to recognize, interpret, and value the narrative and symbolic elements that bring legends and traditions to life, understanding their importance as means of cultural transmission and identity formation.

(Developed for Social Studies, Spanish Language, Sciences, and English Language, grade 5; recommended for Social Studies, middle school grades, and Spanish Language and Sciences, grade 6)

This curriculum unit is meant to accompany a Read180 unit on the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, but can be incorporated into any unit of study that teachers are undertaking. The focus that the unit brings is the concept of object study in the classroom. Early in the unit I will introduce the concept of material culture to students and then begin to allow them to practice object study in the classroom through activities, such as Show and Tell and the Object Study Timeline, which they will work on sporadically throughout the life of the unit. Throughout the unit I will introduce a variety of online sources, such as the Library of Congress, The Ford’s Theater Museum, and others highlighted in the unit, that will serve to parallel our readings. The unit will end with students going back to the resources to participate in the Lincoln Assassination Living Museum Activity.

(Developed for Read 180, grades 5-8; recommended for Language Arts, grades 5-8; English, grades 9-12; and American History, grades 6-12)

This unit is an interdisciplinary, art-infused balm to environmental science courses that may overwhelm with data, yet leave the student feeling powerless to affect change. Students may be more galvanized into action when asked to connect emotionally and spiritually with the philosophical repercussions of our consumerist society. By giving objects voices, personalities and roles, students will be awakened to a more mindful consciousness around how to use, care and respect the products of our environment. At the beginning of the unit, students will compose a draft of an environmentalist philosophy or contract for how to use the environment. After going through a sequence of lessons that include a Fishbowl discussion, reflecting on sentimental artifacts, exploring cultural idioms, imagining a dystopian future world of scarcity, personifying objects as agents of social change, and examining historical pieces of environmentalist propaganda and manifestos, students will revisit their environmental philosophy with more nuance. Their takeaway object will be a sculpture or portrait made of their own trash to represent their new ethic.

(Developed for Environmental Studies, grades 11-12; recommended for Environmental Studies, Philosophy, and English, grades 11-12)

This interdisciplinary unit introduces high school students to the laboratory setting through the lens of material culture, using laboratory tools as entry points for scientific inquiry, cultural reflection, and behavioral expectations. Designed as an introductory unit for science courses like Chemistry and Integrated Science, it invites students to explore the physical and chemical properties of materials and how these properties shape scientific practices, safety norms, and classroom conduct. Students will learn to think like scientists by developing foundational skills in measurement, SI units, and unit conversions, connecting abstract concepts to the tools and technologies they handle in class. Lab equipment will be treated as cultural artifacts whose design and material properties influence what scientists can do, and how they must behave, in the laboratory.

By treating laboratory objects like goggles, beakers, and hot plates as cultural artifacts with agency, students begin to understand how material design influences what we can do in a lab and how we behave within it. Historical and artistic representations of laboratories further enrich students’ understanding of how science is both practiced and perceived. Through hands-on experiments, critical observation, and reflective discussion, students will examine how the evolution of scientific tools parallels advancements in chemistry, while also developing foundational concepts such as heat transfer, energy, and states of matter. Aligned with the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS), this unit not only builds content knowledge but also cultivates scientific identity and lab

citizenship, helping students “think like scientists” from day one by recognizing the lab as a place of careful practice, cultural meaning, and material constraint. By rooting this learning in the diverse lived experiences of our urban comprehensive high school students, I aim to make the laboratory not only a site for scientific thinking, but also a space for belonging, collaboration, and mutual respect.

(Developed for Chemistry, grades 10-12; Culinary Chemistry, grades 11-12; and Integrated Science, grade 9; recommended for Biology, General and Physical Sciences, Earth Science, and Art History, grades 9-12)

This unit focuses on exploring the rich cultural diversity of Native Americans, Panamanians and Russians through the lens of music, dance and traditional clothing. By studying the Quinnipiac Tribe alongside Panamanian and Russian cultures, students will gain a deeper understanding of how culture shapes identity. This comparative approach encourages critical thinking and fosters respect for different traditions. Students will engage in an in-depth study of the unique musical instruments, traditional dances, and distinctive clothing associated with these cultures. Through interactive lessons, students will learn the significance of each element in expressing cultural identity and heritage.

The integration of music and dance allows students to engage actively with the material, making learning more dynamic. Additionally, exploring these cultural elements can enhance students’ language skills as they learn new vocabulary and expressions related to music and art.

In this unit students will be able to identify and compare the musical instruments, dance styles and traditional clothing of Native American, Panamanian and Russian cultures. I will introduce the topic to students through a multimedia presentation that will include pictures, videos and audio clips of instruments and dances.

Upon the completion of this unit, students will be able to identify key instruments from each culture, for example, Native American Quinnipiac tribe natural sounds, Panama’s mejorana, and Russia’s balalaika. They will explore traditional dance forms and their meanings in each culture, as well as typical clothing styles and their symbolic representations. They will understand the similarities and differences in the use of music and dance across cultures; and will create a presentation or visual project comparing the musical instruments, dance styles and clothing from the three cultures studied, demonstrating their understanding of cultural significance and similarities and differences.

I will also ask essential questions to stimulate discussion. Why is it important to learn about different cultures when studying a language? How do traditions, celebrations and daily life differ among Native American, Panamanian and Russian communities? What makes a culture unique, and how do Native American, Panamanian and Russian cultures reflect their history and geography? Students will discuss the role of music, dance and clothing in expressing cultural identity.

Some assessments will include hosting a cultural dance day where students can dress in traditional clothing or colors representing each culture, creating a clothing collage using images from magazines or online resources or make an actual piece of clothing, and organizing a “fashion show” where students present what they learned about the clothing of each culture.

Students will be able to choose how to show what they learned: they can write a report, create a presentation, or even produce a short video that showcases what they've learned about the musical instruments, dances, and clothing from Native American, Panamanian, and Russian cultures.

(Developed for Spanish, grade 8; recommended for English Language Arts and Social Studies, grade 8)

This visual arts unit, Iron Sharpens Iron: Master Blacksmithing, is written for teaching 8th grade students. Students will learn about the ironwork of the master blacksmith Samuel Yellin and create artwork inspired by his wrought-iron gates on Yale’s campus in New Haven, Connecticut. Students will reflect on and respond to ironworks by the master blacksmith Samuel Yellin. It is an interdisciplinary unit that teaches students how to analyze artworks and investigate objects. This unit concludes with a field trip to the Yale University Art Gallery. Students will experiment with materials to reinterpret artistic blacksmithing practices to create drawings and 3D artworks.

(Developed for Visual Arts, grade 8; recommended for Visual Arts, grade 8)

Typically, modern world history classrooms primarily focus on important events and leaders of revolutions. This unit curriculum’s discussions and lesson plans extend beyond these common topics by incorporating the study of revolutionary objects. The unit consists of three pairs of revolutions: the Scientific Revolution and the Enlightenment, the French and Haitian Revolutions, and the Industrial and Russian Revolutions. Ninth grade students will apply art historian Jules Prown’s method of object analysis, which consists of three steps: description, deduction, and speculation. In the description stage, students will first examine the object as a whole, and then work down to its fine details. Deduction consists of handling the object, or imagining how one could handle it in limited circumstances, and describing the sensory experience of using or viewing the object. Finally, students will form a hypothesis about the object’s identity and function, and use outside information (catalogue information, archival resources, research on similar objects, etc.) to confirm their ideas. Along the way, students will answer and develop a multitude of questions regarding their chosen objects. Throughout the unit, students will be challenged to use Prown’s method, and use their skills to create a final project on revolutionary objects from a Latin American revolution of their choice. Overall, the unit has been written with the intention of engaging our diverse learners through hands-on activities and inclusive content.

(Developed for Modern World History, grade 9; recommended for Modern World History, grade 9)

This unit is for high school Arts, English and Creative Writing teachers interested in a writing- and discussion-centered semester-long scrapbook project. The unit is manageable, not expensive to facilitate. The experience of teaching this unit is immersive, a hands-on learning model which is student-centered. The goal is to create a virtual or handheld scrapbook, telling the local story of the class community, and to share it with a national audience. The learning activities are based in community-sharing, influenced by the art historian Jules Prown and the weaver Anni Albers. It includes inclusive and playful pedagogy, studying the Romanov family albums and Nancy Rolfe’s scrapbooks at the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, and getting to know objects at the Peabody Museum of Natural History. While curating material objects for the scrapbook, students will analyze and explore the lives of the objects they choose. They will write descriptions of their objects. Relationships will be built through deep, academically investigative processes. Students will edit a short blackout poem, based on Prown’s method of investigation, summarized in his words: “an entire cultural universe is in the object waiting to be discovered”. Other activities include constructing a mini eulogy through word and images, and practicing writing.

(Developed for Creative Writing, grades 11-12, and English Language Arts, grades 9-12; recommended for Creative Writing, English, Language Arts, and Social Studies, grades 9-12)

This curriculum unit, designed by Eve Galanis, a social studies teacher, historian, and artist based in New Haven, Connecticut, explores the history and enduring impact of the American eugenics movement. This unit emphasizes how eugenics influences photography, music, and cultural life. Originally created for a Digital Storytelling course, the unit is intentionally broad and adaptable for U.S. history, Black and Latino studies, ethnic studies, genocidal studies, visual art, theater, or music classes.The curriculum challenges the misconception that eugenics was a fringe or outdated pseudoscience, instead situating it as a central force in shaping 20th-century education, aesthetics, and social hierarchies. It highlights how eugenicists weaponized ideas of heredity, perfection, talent, and ability to enforce racial and social hierarchies, while also emphasizing the tradition of resistance; the anti-eugenic art, music, and cultural practices that countered these ideologies.

Students begin with a historical overview, analyzing primary and secondary sources, and examining how photography and music were used to promote eugenic ideals. They then turn to examples of anti-eugenic media, such as W.E.B. Du Bois’s photography and politically charged music of the Civil Rights and anti-colonial eras, to see how communities resisted cultural erasure and redefined artistic value. The unit culminates in a student-designed digital storytelling project that critiques eugenic legacies and creates liberatory alternatives.

(Developed for Digital Storytelling, grades 10-12; recommended for Black and Latino Studies, U.S. History, World History, and Ethnic Studies, grades 9-12)

This unit, designed for Advanced Placement African American Studies (APAAS) course will introduce students to a brief history of eugenics and its legacies, while centering Black women’s histories and their fight for reproductive liberty. Students will learn about the history of eugenics as the foundation to identify eugenic behaviors and develop anti-eugenic practices engaging with the content and course itself. The content of this unit is divided into three historical time periods ranging from the 17th century to contemporary. In each of these time periods students will explore distinct ways eugenic logic manifests, evaluate changes and/or continuities regarding its function in regulating Black women’s reproductive capacities. By engaging in both the content and course students will discover how eugenic ideologies have shaped dominant narratives and how it persists in educational practices; Ultimately developing a critical lens that empowers them to challenge and disrupt these legacies through anti-eugenic thought and action. While this unit is designed for APAAS it can be integrated in other AP courses, U.S. History, Ethnic Studies, and is easily adaptable for interdisciplinary teaching.

(Developed for AP African American Studies and U.S. History, grades 10-12; recommended for Biology and New Haven History, grades 10-12; and ELA and Journalism, grades 11-12)

This unit invites middle school students to critically examine the origins, implications, and impact of standardized testing in American public education. Drawing on the historical foundations of intelligence testing and its roots in the eugenics movement, students learn how assessments have historically functioned not to support learning, but to sort, exclude, and reinforce racial and class-based hierarchies.

Students explore how standardized testing became central to public education and reflect on how these assessments have shaped their own academic identities. Through inquiry, reflection, discussion, and project-based learning, students confront questions such as: What do test scores say about intelligence and potential? Who created these systems of assessment? Who benefits from them? Who is harmed by them? What might more just and inclusive assessments look like?

The unit culminates in an activism project in which students propose and/or advocate for more equitable approaches in education. Grounded in civic education and informed by the history of educational inequality, this unit empowers students to move from personal reflection to collective action, developing the critical tools they need to become advocates for equity in their schools and beyond.

(Developed for U.S. History, grade 8; recommended for U.S. History, grade 10)

This curriculum unit explores the challenges Latin American immigrant students face in balancing their cultural heritage with pressures to assimilate into a dominant culture that often marginalizes them. Many encounter policies and school curricula that overlook their contributions and experiences while depicting immigrants as threats or burdens. New arrivals in New Haven Public Schools undergo assessments that may place them at lower grade levels, perpetuating feelings of inferiority and limiting access to resources.

The way Latin American students see themselves is shaped by family, social, and academic structures, many rooted in eugenics policies of the late 19th century. Despite eugenics' significant historical influence, discussions around it are largely absent from the current school curricula, even though local research highlighted its effects as recently as the 1990s.

Through a careful selection of literature exploring discrimination, poverty, gender roles, immigration, and identity, this unit helps students understand how eugenics shaped societal attitudes and policies of inequality. By critically examining these themes, students are encouraged to value their ethnicity, voice, and identity. Ultimately, this unit serves as both a historical exploration and an intervention, empowering students to challenge eugenic legacies and contribute to a more just and inclusive society.

(Developed for Language Arts and Social Studies, grade 5; recommended for Language Arts, grades 5-6, and History, grades 5-7)

My unit begins with a historical outline that explains how modern eugenics differs from its older incarnations. The first part analyzes how modern eugenics movements since the 1800s were formed in conjunction with the expansion and operation of European colonialism, white supremacy, and capitalism. The first assignment requires students to explore how different social groups were de-humanized via racist comics and given dignity through photojournalism.

The second part of the unit discusses early eugenics practices within the United States and explores how eugenics connects with US white supremacy and capitalism. The second assignment involves students reading articles on how eugenics was practiced across multiple industries and making a slideshow on how certain scholars influenced their fields while promoting eugenics.

The third part examines how eugenics is thoroughly inculcated into our daily lives today through our educational and economic systems while addressing more prominent examples of the overt promotion of eugenics in politics today. The third assignment requires students to conduct research in groups on how eugenics is still present today. The fourth part discusses disability justice activism and efforts to abolish eugenics. The final project involves selecting and researching an industry and proposing how to abolish eugenics.

(Developed for Sociology, grades 9-12; recommended for American History, Modern World History, African American History, and Latin History, grades 9-12)

This unit was developed for Psychology 100, a dual enrollment class with Southern Connecticut State University where students in New Haven Public Schools earn both high school and college credit. This is an upperclassmen elective class. This unit looks at the American Eugenics Movement and the American Eugenics Society as a local New Haven organization. The eugenics movement and psychology as a scientific discipline both developed from the late 19th century desire to use science to explain human behavior and improve the human condition. As the field of psychology was founded from a primarily white, Western European, male perspective, deviations from that demographic were often seen as flawed and in need of correction and/or elimination. This, along with systemic racism and a colonizing mindset, helped foster eugenics, which in turn strengthened the theories of those same early psychologists. In this unit, students will explore the origins of the eugenics movement, its growth and influence on New Haven and the world throughout the 20th century, and its lasting effects to this day in the context of this psychology course. The final project is a short research project on one of the lasting legacies of eugenics through to the present day.

(Developed for Psychology, grades 10-12, and Constitutional Law, grade 11; recommended for Psychology and New Haven History, grades 10-12, and Constitutional Law, grade 11)

This unit invites students and teachers to examine and confront the pseudoscience of eugenics. Taught at the end of the biology course, it asks students to revisit and question what they have learnt about genetics. Eugenics claimed to be science, and at some point, was the dominant narrative, backed by the most important universities and scientific institutions in the USA, but it used flawed biology to justify racism, classism, ableism and even violence. Eugenics is not a thing of the past, its legacy can be observed today in the way we talk about intelligence, crime, health or beauty.

Students will use their scientific knowledge and critical thinking skills to dismantle eugenic myths and investigate how these ideas grew and shaped U.S. history, including their own city. They will conduct historical research, scientific analysis and collaborative projects to reflect about eugenic ideas and learn how to spot its legacy in modern examples.

This unit is a call to think critically about how science is used and misused in our society. Teaching students that science is not neutral and needs ethical reflection will empower them to recognize pseudoscience, confront injustice and contribute to a more equitable future.

(Developed for Biology, grades 9-12; recommended for Biology, secondary grades, and Science, elementary grades)

The unit I am presenting is one that offers a brief overview about Eugenics and its direct influence on Education as we know it today. Assessing reading comprehension using an anti-eugenic approach is what I am presenting as an alternative to standardized testing in the classroom. My unit consists of teaching strategies that we can implement in the hopes of assessing less with standardized tests and introducing more individualized project based learning. This unit uses a middle school level novel Bronx Masquerade by Nikki Grimes, but the content objectives, teaching strategies, and activities are applicable to any novel study. Students will work with making text to self and text to world connections. My goal is to develop a student’s desire to want to read more because they are reading for meaning. In this unit, students will have various opportunities to interact with the text and make meaningful connections using analytical skills. The unit also allows for student discourse and in best practice we know students learn best when they learn from each other through conversation and the healthy exchange of ideas. The lessons provide a framework for student discussion beyond the text on issues about racism, inequality and stereotypes.

(Developed for ELA Readers Workshop and ELA Writers Workshop, grades 7-8; recommended for ELA, grades 5-6, and Bilingual reading ELA and Social Studies, grades 5-8)

This unit guides language education teachers into incorporating more culturally relevant lessons into their classroom. In addition to advancing language learning goals, the unit integrates cultural studies and investigations into the curriculum. This unit used the “shadow” of eugenics to explore aspects of identity. Students will reflect, write, and discuss how they perceive themselves and others; investigate the systemic factors that contribute to those perceptions; and ultimately identify ways in which we can be anti-eugenic in our Spanish classroom and our everyday lives.

(Developed for Spanish II, grades 9-12; recommended for Spanish I and II, grades 9-12)

This curriculum unit examines the historical connection of eugenics with mathematics education, with a focus on New Haven and the institutional role of Yale University. It looks at statistical tools such as sampling, percentages, and data visualization, that were important in enabling eugenic ideologies in the early 20th century, both nationally and within Connecticut’s local context. Through legislative support, academic research, and public messaging, eugenicists used the coercive power of mathematics, especially statistics, to portray biased assumptions about heredity and intelligence as objective truths.

The unit calls on math educators to engage with this history as part of their professional responsibility. It includes a set of four anti-eugenics lesson plans for middle school students, certainly adaptable to a wider audience, designed to explore fairness, data ethics, and the misuse of statistics. These lessons help students to ask not just “Is the math correct?” but “Who does this math serve?” and “What assumptions are made in the data?”

By grounding mathematical literacy in historical awareness and ethical reflection, the unit advocates for a more anti-eugenics pedagogy. This approach helps counter past harms and helps students recognize the ongoing social consequences of statistical reasoning. The paper blends past scholarship in race science, statistics, and education to demonstrate why eugenics remains a relevant topic within a math classroom today.

(Developed for Pre-Algebra, grade 7; recommended for Mathematics, grade 6, and Pre-Algebra, Grade 8)

In this S.T.E.A.M. unit students will self select an area of interest touching on topics connected to eugenics and brain related topics. The students can investigate many areas including gene editing, brain scans, and others or may wish to better understand how the brain works, parts of the brain, tools or devices to gain information on the brain. Students can better understand eugenics and how those alleged to be “feeble minded” had their reproduction regulated, sometimes based on spurious “intelligence tests.” Students can consider brain assessments for IQ or can question many other areas during this innovative S.T.E.A.M unit.

(Developed for Art, grades 7 and 9-12; recommended for Art, Science, Math, and Computer)