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TRAILS Featured Resources
TRAILS Featured Resources
February 23, 2023

TRAILS, the Teaching Resources and Innovation Library for Sociology, provides a way for you to easily locate peer-reviewed teaching materials, showcase your teaching ideas, develop professionally, and join a community of scholarly teachers. You will find great assignments, syllabi, lectures, and other teaching ideas at TRAILS. Please also consider submitting your great ideas for teaching. The Featured Resources include some of the newest additions to our collection.

-Stephanie Medley-Rath
TRAILS Lead Editor

TRAILS logo with gold star superimposed on the lower right corner. Logo is composed of four vertical bars in varying shades of blue.
Someone working on a laptop using ChatGPT
Tamanna Shah
Seeing with Machines: A Reflexive Ethnography of AI Systems in Everyday Life
July 23, 2025
Subject Area(s):
Ethnography, Science and Technology
Resource Type(s):
Assignment
Class Level(s):
Any Level, Graduate
Class Size(s):
Medium
Abstract:

Students conduct a reflexive ethnography of their everyday AI interactions, keeping field notes and analyzing how AI shapes perception, behavior, and identity. Instead of being passive users, it challenges students to reveal the invisible processes shaping their...

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An arial view of suburban neighborhoods
Elizabeth Klainot-Hess
Class Activity: Analyzing Residential Racial Segregation Using Census Data and an Interactive Map
July 8, 2025
Subject Area(s):
Demography, Introduction to Sociology/Social Problems, Public Policy, Race, Class and Gender, Racial and Ethnic Relations, Social Change, Urban Sociology, Visual Sociology
Resource Type(s):
Class Activity
Class Level(s):
College 100, College 200, College 300
Class Size(s):
Medium, Small
Abstract:

In this classroom activity students will use an interactive map based on 2020 Census data to identify and analyze residential racial segregation across the United States.  Using the black-white dissimilarity index, students will describe and analyze residential...

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A group of students around a table with computers at a workshop
Bailey Brown, Amber
Interdisciplinary Methods Exchange: A Joint-Class Guest Speaker Workshop
April 23, 2025
Subject Area(s):
Capstone Courses, Qualitative Methodology, Quantitative Methodology, Research Methods, Statistics
Resource Type(s):
Assignment, Class Activity, Syllabus
Class Level(s):
College 200, College 300, College 400
Class Size(s):
Large, Medium
Abstract:

This workshop brings scholars in the social sciences together for a 10-week “Interdisciplinary Research Methods Exchange.” Scholars speak to a group of social science undergraduate majors about their current and prior research, highlighting their background,...

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A collection of yellow items, including a bag, sweater, lamp, frame, gnome, and yarn
Marion Cassard
Situated Knowledge: Moving Beyond the Objectivity/Subjectivity Binary
April 23, 2025
Subject Area(s):
Cultural Sociology, Ethnography, Introduction to Sociology/Social Problems, Knowledge, Qualitative Methodology, Race, Class and Gender, Research Methods, Social Change, Sociological Practice, Theory
Resource Type(s):
Class Activity
Class Level(s):
College 100, College 200, College 300
Class Size(s):
Small
Abstract:

This activity provides students with a hands-on experience of situated knowledge, demonstrating how knowledge is shaped by perspective and positionality rather than fitting neatly into the objectivity/subjectivity binary. Using physical barriers...

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The exterior of a museum
Alyssa Lyons
Experiential Learning in Sociology: Exploring the Role of Settler Colonialism in Museum Education
January 31, 2025
Subject Area(s):
Education, Knowledge, Race, Class and Gender, Visual Sociology
Resource Type(s):
Assignment, Essay
Class Level(s):
College 300
Class Size(s):
Medium
Abstract:

Experiential learning helps students apply sociological concepts to the social world (Holtzman & Menning, 2015). This experiential project was developed for an upper-level sociology course exploring global and cross-cultural perspectives on education and...

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Zombies trying to break through a door
Sheri-Lynn Kurisu
Zombie Sociology
January 31, 2025
Subject Area(s):
Criminal Justice, Criminology/Delinquency, Education, Family, Labor and Labor Movements, Law and Society, Medical Sociology, Other, Penology/Corrections, Race, Class and Gender, Sex and Gender, Social Control, Teaching and Learning in Sociology, Work and Labor Markets
Resource Type(s):
Syllabus
Class Level(s):
Any Level, College 400
Class Size(s):
Any
Abstract:

Zombie Sociology invites students to exercise their sociological imaginations by using the lens of a zombie apocalypse to critically examine social institutions and social structures.

In the last decade, zombies have invaded popular culture,...

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Pennies falling out of a vase across a table
Zach Rubin
Life Still Happens
November 21, 2024
Subject Area(s):
Economic Sociology, Family, High School Sociology, Introduction to Sociology/Social Problems, Race, Class and Gender, Social Welfare/Social Work, Sociological Practice, Stratification/Mobility
Resource Type(s):
Class Activity
Class Level(s):
College 100, College 200, High School
Class Size(s):
Medium, Small
Abstract:

An update to Dr. Tracy Ore’s “Life Happens” activity (2015), “Life Still Happens” is a class activity designed to illustrate and help students apply the sociological concept of life chances (Weber 1978). Students create or are assigned to “families” tasked with...

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A man in the grocery store
Tamika Odum
Separate, Not Equal: Exploring Food Insecurity and Health
September 25, 2024
Subject Area(s):
Medical Sociology, Public Policy, Race, Class and Gender
Resource Type(s):
Assessment, Assignment
Class Level(s):
College 100, College 200, College 300
Class Size(s):
Any
Abstract:

This project helps students gain a sociological understanding of food insecurity and health. Students participate in an immersive experience, exploring local grocery stores in Cincinnati. The goal of this activity is to help students use scholarship, interactive...

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Climate justice equals social justice sign at a protest
Rachel Bryant-Anderson
Integrating Climate Justice into a Social Problems Course
September 25, 2024
Subject Area(s):
Environmental Sociology, Introduction to Sociology/Social Problems, Teaching and Learning in Sociology
Resource Type(s):
Assignment
Class Level(s):
College 200
Class Size(s):
Any
Abstract:

This guide describes climate justice-themed content designed for a Social Problems course. While the course covers many distinct “social problems,” it also shows how climate justice relates to each of these problems. Students complete several small assignments...

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A vaccine
Deeb Kitchen
Ethics, Race, and Deception: Analyzing a Historical Medical Study
September 23, 2024
Subject Area(s):
Medical Sociology, Racial and Ethnic Relations
Resource Type(s):
Class Activity
Class Level(s):
Any Level, College 100, College 200, College 300, College 400
Class Size(s):
Medium, Small
Abstract:

This class activity engages students in a critical exploration of the Tuskegee Syphilis Study, a notorious example of unethical medical research. The activity is particularly well-suited for courses on race and ethnicity, research methods, or medical sociology,...

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