Collect articles from newspapers, academic journals and new-discovery magazines that are related to your discipline. These articles can also be related to topics that you are teaching. Display new discoveries or fun stories on the bulletin boards. Textbooks are not always up to date on recent discoveries. Bulletin boards can be a way to showcase current findings. For instance, you may introduce students to nuclear energy being used in pharmacy or the migration of the ecosystem due to climate change.
The fields of science and social studies are broad, with many individual branches under each umbrella. Your bulletin board can be one way to teach students about some of these other disciplines. Change the bulletin board periodically with the theme of a new discipline. For example, a science lab could have bulletin boards on genetics, marine science, physical oceanography, ecology, computer science, medical and pharmaceutical sciences. A social-studies classroom might have bulletin boards on archaeology, sociology and political science. They can also be targeted to careers in these disciplines. A historic timeline of the different disciplines can give students an idea on how a particular discipline evolves over time.
Educate your students about famous people in your discipline, such as renowned physicist Albert Einstein or Emile Durkheim, a founding father of sociology. Display descriptions of their backgrounds and contributions along with their photographs and pictures of their inventions or accomplishments. This kind of bulletin board provides students with role models and may inspire your students to invent and be more creative. You also might introduce students to successful modern-day scientists or social scientists currently in the news, such as computer scientist Steve Jobs, the founder of Apple.
Get students involved in making the bulletin boards. This gives them a sense of achievement and importance in your class. Display their projects on the bulletin boards. You also can design a theme in which students take turns in presenting their research findings in a discipline of their interests. This exercise could inspire students to learn more about various disciplines on their own.