Lesson Plans
Understanding that our team cannot be in every classroom that would like to engage with Operation250, we would like to share our lesson plans for you to use in your classroom. Below are lesson plans thought of, developed, and finalized by the Operation250 team. These lessons have been made to achieve the impact the organization looks to have; they can either be combined to develop a unit with overarching goals, or they can also be one-off lessons that achieve the learning objectives outlined at the top of each lesson.
Next to each lesson is a brief description, the age group we built it for, and the estimated time needed to complete the lesson. When you use a lesson, please contact us and let us know of your experience. Continue to check back in to see what new lessons are posted by the team!
* Lessons denoting a * were made possible with the support of funding from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s Center for Prevention Programs and Partnerships, opportunity number DHS-20-TTP-132-00-01
Online Safety Lesson Plans
Critically Analyzing & Reflecting on Risk*
This lesson will help students both identify the positive ways they can interact with the internet as well as identify potentially risky situations they might encounter online in order to bolster their online health and overall safety in online settings. By critically analyzing online situations, it will make the students reflect on their own decision-making and behaviors that might not just impact them, but others as well.
Age (Grade): 14-16 (9th-10th)
Length: 45 minutes
Cyberbullying & Coping*
This lesson focuses on the impacts of cyberbullying and building coping skills to handle these situations. The physical and emotional harm that cyberbullying can have is undeniable, however what we are seeing is that youth are unsure of how to best react to these situations when they arise online. This lesson is meant to best prepare youth to improve their confidence and ability to deal with these online situations.
Age (Grade): 13-15 (7th-9th)
Length: 45 minutes
Identifying Hateful Language*
This lesson focuses on developing the students’ understanding of the underlying roots to hateful thinking and the propensity for these ideas to grow in both the offline and online environment. Starting from the language used that promotes stereotyping and prejudice, to discriminatory actions, this lesson works to best prepare students to identify and act to stop hate from spreading.
Age (Grade): 14-18 (9th-12th)
Length: 60-70 Minutes
Social Media THreats
This lesson casts a wide net into the threats posed on social media. This is a lesson into social media behavior and addresses some of the threats and actions that can be taken on social media websites. This lesson employs a variety of specifically built case studies and group work exercises to achieve the learning objective.
Age (Grade): 13-14 (6th)
Length: 60-70 Minutes
Virtual Invisibility
A introductory lesson plan for elementary and middle school students into why the behavior we exhibit online is typically more risky than that we would offline. Where in the real world are we invisible? How does this impact our decision making? This is a great, quick, intro lesson into the psychological role of the internet on our decisions.
Age (Grade): 9-12 (4th-7th)
Length: 45-50 Minutes
Perspective taking in the online space*
Everyone’s online relationship and experience is unique to them. This lesson asks youth to reflect on those differences and examine the ways different perspectives come across in potentially unsafe situations by being placed within them.
Age (Grade): 14-16 (8th-10th)
Length: 35 minutes
Social Media Reflection & Threat Recognition*
This lesson focuses on the relationship youth have built with social media. After this, the lesson examines the four classifications of risks that youth might encounter: physical, emotional, informational, and belief/idea risks.
Age (Grade): 13-15 (7th-9th)
Length: 40 Minutes
Identifying Online Risks & Responding*
At the threshold of adulthood, upperclassmen in high school face a period of time where the risks they face online may change or shift, along with the consequences they may face for their online actions. With these changes, also comes increased responsibility to be a positive digital citizen and work to take actions that make the internet a better place for themselves and others. This lesson focuses on how we may open ourselves up to risk when online through certain decisions, and how we might be able to create a personalized “toolbox” of ways to cope with unsafe online situations.
Age (Grade): 16-18 (11th-12th)
Length: 80 minutes
Online behavior
A lesson focusing on the issue of online disinhibition and making risky decisions online. This lesson uses activities, discussions, and case studies to enhance the understanding of online decision making and risk assessment on the internet.
Age (Grade): 13-15 (8th & 9th)
Length: 45 minutes
The influence of the internet on behavior*
This lesson plan is meant to address the influence that the internet has on youth behavior and the ways it presents a propensity for risk. After examining the influence of the internet, the lesson challenges students to build skills to address the unsafe online situations that might present themselves to youth.
Age (Grade): 14-16 (9th-10th)
Length: 40 minutes
Digital health & Coping with our online relationship*
This lesson analyzes what “digital health” means, and identify what parts of our relationship with social media are unhealthy or unsustainable. Then it explores coping mechanisms necessary to incorporate into youths’ lives to help manage this relationship.
Age (Grade): 11-14 (Middle School)
Length: 45 minutes
Online Risks & Staying safe from them
Online risks and threats can come in many different forms; whether it is the student themselves being more unsafe online, being vulnerable to other things that are threatening, or someone being willing to be more threatening to others online. This lesson dives into the psychology of online decision making and applied learning using real-life case studies.
Age (Grade): 12-14 (7th-8th)
Length: 35-40 Minutes
Stereotypes, Prejudice, & Discrimination
Stereotypical thoughts, prejudicial attitudes, and discriminatory action are all connected. This lesson looks at how identity plays a role in the in-groups and out-groups that form around us, and how the pathway of hate between stereotypes, to prejudice, to discrimination comes to be.
Age (Grade): 13-14 (8th)
Length: 45 Minutes
In & Out Groups, Stereotypes, Prejudice, & Hate
This lesson is about hate, how hateful thinking can resonate, and the core elements that can foster hateful ideas. This lesson combines a series of activities, handouts, and discussions about in and out-group, stereotypes, hate, racism, sexism and more.
Age (Grade): 14-15 (9th & 10th)
Length: 45 Minutes