Students observe live insects and examine insects depicted in a seventeenth-century drawing. They identify the three characteristics of an adult insect: a three-part body (head, thorax, and abdomen), six legs, and antennae. They collect and draw live insects, incorporating a variety of shapes and lines.

Students observe and study insects depicted in a seventeenth-century drawing. They identify characteristics common to all insects and those unique to particular species. Students research and draw insects, incorporating a variety of lines and shapes and using value to depict three-dimensionality.

Advanced-level students will examine photographs depicting suburban development; conduct independent research on land use; and design a plan for a utopian, environmentally-friendly housing development in their city.

Beginning-level students will compare and contrast different uses of land in the state of California and write a letter about a modern-day environmental issue.

Students will read writings by Ralph Waldo Emerson and discuss the principles of transcendentalism. They will then discuss a landscape photograph by Carleton Watkins and use pinhole cameras to create photographic essays depicting a modern-day environmental issue.

Students pair Dorothea Lange's photographs with passages from John Steinbeck's novel The Grapes of Wrath. Students create an oral group presentation and discuss the relationship between the images and text.

Students will compare the daguerreotype of Edgar Allan Poe by an unknown photographer with Poe's writings in an effort to discover the character of this mysterious author.

Students will compare portrayals of individual soldiers to depictions of battle scenes, write two articles representing two different perspectives about a current war, and manipulate a photograph to alter its mood.

Students will compare and contrast artworks depicting different viewpoints about war and will write captions that describe works of art in different media. They will also manipulate the image depicted in a photograph of a war in recent history.

Students study how artists of the Neoclassical period were influenced by major historical events during the Enlightenment. They will identify and analyze the Neoclassical style.

Students will compare propagandistic strategies in artworks to modern-day examples of persuasive techniques and create a propaganda poster for a current political leader.

Students will examine the influence of Greek and Roman mythology on art, discuss strategies of propaganda in an ancient portrait and a 17th-century cabinet, and create a campaign poster for a classroom candidate that uses Greek or Roman iconography.

Make connections between Dorothea Lange's images and the history of the Dust Bowl, the Depression, World War II, and large-scale agriculture in the United States. Students learn about the role of photography in news stories and write their own news story.

Students will learn about the Protestant Reformation and the Catholic Counter Reformation as related events. They will analyze works by the artists Rubens and Rembrandt, and use the artworks to illustrate the divergent beliefs and philosophies of the two movements.

Students will view three works of decorative arts and complete the accompanying activities to better understand the Age of Exploration and the Scientific Revolution, and how these "revolutions" and their discoveries influenced the new European world view.

Students will use visual analysis to examine two images of rocks. They will make their own observations of individual rocks through drawing, and understand how the same observation skills can be used in the study of geology.

Students will examine an image of civilians affected by the Vietnam War. They will research and discuss the reasons the Vietnam War began, why America became involved, and what some of the long-term effects of this war have been

Students keep journals in which they respond in writing to Dorothea Lange's photographs.