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.
Alice Keeler is a mother of 5 and a teacher in Fresno, California. She has her B.A in Mathematics, M.S. in Educational Media Design and Technology and is currently working on a doctorate in Educational Technology with an emphasis in games and simulations. EdTech speaker, blogger, and presenter. Founder of coffeeEDU, a 1 hour conference event for educators. New Media Consortium Horizon report advisory panel member. High school math teacher for 14 years. Currently teaching pre-service teachers curriculum, instruction and technology at California State University Fresno. Teaches online for Fresno Pacific University in the Masters in Educational Technology. Passionate that kids are not failures, researches gamification in education to increase student motivation.
This lesson is designed to teach the Common Core State Standard: Mathematics
CCSS.MATH.PRACTICE.MP2 Reason abstractly and quantitatively.
CCSS.MATH.PRACTICE.MP4 Model with mathematics.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W E Provide a concluding statement or section that follows from and supports the argument presented.

2. Discuss how this image addresses the rule of thirds.
© Getty Images
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. Discuss how this image addresses the rule of thirds.
Moraine Lake and the Valley of the Ten Peaks provide great photo opportunities for visitors to Canada’s oldest national park. With more than 2,500 square miles of Rocky Mountain wilderness to explore, Banff National Park offers activities all year round.
Some who’ve only seen photos of Moraine Lake may wonder if the color of the water has been altered in the image. But glacial flour – rocks that have been pulverized into powder by glacial erosion – is the cause of the lake’s tint. The flour becomes suspended in the glacial lake, giving the water its turquoise hue.
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. Discuss how this image addresses the rule of thirds.1
Web Search
What is the rule of thirds? 2
Thinking
What is in each third of the image? 3
Image Search
Use Bing images to locate pictures that demonstrate the rule of thirds. 4
Why does the application of the rule of thirds for this image help to create a compelling image? 5
How can we use the Rule of Thirds to create interest in a composition?
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. Discuss how this image addresses the rule of thirds.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. Discuss how this image addresses the rule of thirds.1
Web Search
What is the rule of thirds? 2
Thinking
What is in each third of the image? 3
Image Search
Use Bing images to locate pictures that demonstrate the rule of thirds. 4
Why does the application of the rule of thirds for this image help to create a compelling image? 5
How can we use the Rule of Thirds to create interest in a composition?
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. Discuss how this image addresses the rule of thirds.1
Web Search
What is the rule of thirds?
(Possible Search Queries: “Rule of Thirds,” )
Sources:
Wikipedia:
Digital Photography:
The rule of thirds is generally regarded as the primary rule of photographic composition. The user imagines the potential picture frame to be divided into 9 equal squares like a tic-tac-toe board. The user positions the key points of interest in places where the imaginary lines intersect or lined up with the horizontal or vertical lines.

8. Discuss how this image addresses the rule of thirds.2
Thinking
What is in each third of the image?
(Possible Search Queries: “Rule of Thirds,” )
Sources:
Wikipedia:
Digital Photography:
Photoble:
When taking a landscape picture, the photographer may decide to line up the horizon with the horizontal line in the bottom third of the shot. Or, if taking a picture of a tree or other horizontal object, the photographer may decide to line it up in the middle of one of the vertical lines to the right or left. When framing points of interest the photographer may choose any one of the four intersections to center the point of interest.
The bottom third of this image is the lake. The middle third is the land and the upper third is the sky.
The left side is the green hill trees. The middle is the open area and the right hand side is the tree.

9. Discuss how this image addresses the rule of thirds.3
Image Search
Use Bing images to locate pictures that demonstrate the rule of thirds.
(Possible Search Queries: “Rule of Thirds Examples” )
Sources
Bing Image Search:
Students should note the variety of ways the rule of thirds may be employed. Some images feature the horizon in the bottom third, others feature the subject lined up in any one of the four intersections while other vertical objects should be lined up on either third of the picture.

10. Discuss how this image addresses the rule of thirds.4
Thinking
Why does the application of the rule of thirds for this image help to create a compelling image?
(Possible Search Queries: “Why the rule of thirds works,” )
Sources
Presentation Zen:
Students should take the principals found online such as: the creation of tension or drama plus the fact that the rule of thirds forces the viewer to find the subject and experience the tension of the scene through the subject’s eyes. When the subject is in the middle of the photograph it is easy to find and there is no sense of movement or tension--the subject is considered static.
Students may notice that the rule of thirds forces the viewer to find the subject, which may be the canoe, in the bottom left intersection. Then a sense of tension is created by the towering mountain range overhead (in the upper third horizontal line). The water line is lined up with the lower horizontal line which places us at eye view with the canoe and creates a further sense of movement and drama.

11. Discuss how this image addresses the rule of thirds.5
Thinking
How can we use the Rule of Thirds to create interest in a composition?
When taking a picture, the photographer can use the rule of thirds to position the area of interest in one of the four intersections. This will give the subject a sense of movement and drama. Also, the photographer may want to frame the picture by lining up vertical photographic components in either the left or right third of the picture. Likewise, the photographer may want to place items like the horizon and/or skyline along one of the two horizontal lines in the invisible grid. This creates a natural and appealing framing of the picture’s subject.

12. Discuss how this image addresses the rule of thirds.
This slide is a chance to summarize the information from the previous slides to build your final answer to the question.