1. Teacher Guide
This lesson is designed to teach kids to ask a critical thinking question that you can’t just put into a search box to solve. To do that, we encourage them with smaller questions that search can help them answer. Make sure that you read the notes for each slide: they not only give you teaching tips but also provide answers and hints so you can help the kids if they are having trouble.
Remember, you can always send feedback to the Bing in the Classroom team at You can learn more about the program at bing.com/classroom and follow the daily lessons on our Partners In Learning site.
Want to extend today’s lesson? Consider using Skype in the Classroom to arrange for your class to chat with another class in today’s location. And if you are using Windows 8, you can also use the Bing apps to learn more about this location and topic; the Travel and News apps in particular make great teaching tools.
Ja'Dell Davis is a Los Angeles native who currently divides her time between New York City and Madison, Wisconsin. She is currently a graduate student at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, pursing a PhD in Sociology. Ja’Dell previously taught high school in Philadelphia public schools, and implemented college access and academic enrichment programming in Chester, Pennsylvania and New York City in Manhattan’s Lower East Side neighborhood. Ja’Dell received her B.A. from Swarthmore College with a special major in History and Educational Studies, and a minor in Black Studies. She completed her M.S.Ed in Secondary School Education at the University of Pennsylvania.  In addition to her studies and work in the education field, Ja’Dell is a dancer, musician, avid people watcher, and Scrabble enthusiast.
This lesson is designed to teach the Common Core State Standard: Reading: Informational Text
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RI.6.4Determine the meaning of words and phrases as they are used in a text, including figurative, connotative, and technical meanings.
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RI.6.1Cite textual evidence to support analysis of what the text says explicitly as well as inferences drawn from the text.
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RI.6.2Determine a central idea of a text and how it is conveyed through particular details; provide a summary of the text distinct from personal opinions or judgments.

2. How have rapid transit systems changed the way people live around the world?
© Shutterstock
Having this up as kids come in is a great settle down activity. You can start class by asking them for thoughts about the picture or about ideas on how they could solve the question of the day.

3. How have rapid transit systems changed the way people live around the world?
Hamburg’s U-Bahn rapid transit system is known as an underground rail, although a majority of the U-Bahn’s tracks actually run above ground. This stop on the U4 line is on an island in the Elbe River, in an up-and-coming district of Hamburg called HafenCity. Construction projects are converting HafenCity’s old warehouses and shipping port areas into livable spaces. So if you want to catch the U-Bahn to HafenCity, look for the stop called Überseequartier, then tell all your friends you caught a train to an island.
Depending on time, you can either have students read this silently to themselves, have one of them read out loud, or read it out loud yourself.

4. How have rapid transit systems changed the way people live around the world?1
Web Search
What is rapid transit? 2
Image Search
What images do we associate with rapid transit? 3
What is the largest rapid transit system? 4
Thinking
What would major cities be like without rapid transit systems? 5
Thinking/
Have you ever traveled on rapid transit? If so, what do you like about it? What would you improve? If not, where in the world would you go to ride a rapid transit system (search online for a location)?
There are a couple of ways to use this slide, depending on how much technology you have in your classroom. You can have students find answers on their own, divide them into teams to have them do all the questions competitively, or have each team find the answer to a different question and then come back together. If you’re doing teams, it is often wise to assign them roles (one person typing, one person who is in charge of sharing back the answer, etc.)

5. How have rapid transit systems changed the way people live around the world?5
Minutes
You can adjust this based on how much time you want to give kids. If a group isn’t able to answer in 5 minutes, you can give them the opportunity to update at the end of class or extend time.

6. How have rapid transit systems changed the way people live around the world?1
Web Search
What is rapid transit? 2
Image Search
What images do we associate with rapid transit? 3
What is the largest rapid transit system? 4
Thinking
What would major cities be like without rapid transit systems? 5
Thinking/
Have you ever traveled on rapid transit? If so, what do you like about it? What would you improve? If not, where in the world would you go to ride a rapid transit system (search online for a location)?
You can ask the students verbally or let one of them come up and insert the answer or show how they got it. This way, you also have a record that you can keep as a class and share with parents, others.

7. How have rapid transit systems changed the way people live around the world?1
Web Search
What is rapid transit?
(Possible query: “what is rapid transit”)
From Wikipedia (
Rapid transit is a type of high-capacity public transport generally found in urban areas.[1][2][3] Unlike buses, trams or light rail, rapid transit systems operate on an exclusive right-of-way which is usually grade separated in tunnels or elevated railways.[4]

8. How have rapid transit systems changed the way people live around the world?2
Image Search
What images do we associate with rapid transit?
Using the “images” link on the Bing search page, and the search term “rapid transit” find these images:

9. How have rapid transit systems changed the way people live around the world?3
Web Search
What is the largest rapid transit system?
(Possible queries: “largest rapid transit system” ,“rapid transit”)
From Wikipedia (
The world's largest rapid transit system by both length of track (842 miles (1,355 km), including non-revenue track)[6] and number of stations (468 stations in total)[7] is the New York City Subway. By length of passenger route, the world's longest single-operator rapid transit system is the Shanghai Metro.[8][9] The busiest rapid transit systems in the world by annual ridership are the Tokyo subway system, the Seoul Metropolitan Subway, the Moscow Metro, the Beijing Metro, and the Shanghai Metro.[10]

10. How have rapid transit systems changed the way people live around the world?4
Thinking
What would major cities be like without rapid transit systems?
Students should offer educated guesses about how major cities would be like without rapid transit systems with specific details about changes in the way of life

11. How have rapid transit systems changed the way people live around the world?5
Thinking/
Web Search
Have you ever traveled on rapid transit? If so, what do you like about it? What would you improve? If not, where in the world would you go to ride a rapid transit system (search online for a location)?
Students should offer their experiences about riding on rapid transit, especially if located in a major city with a heavily used system. Those who are not located in a city with a heavily used rapid transit system should search the web for locations with rapid transit where students are generally interested in visiting.

12. How have rapid transit systems changed the way people live around the world?
This slide is a chance to summarize the information from the previous slides to build your final answer to the question.