This video from This is Alabama showcases the beautiful beaches of Alabama. Visitors come from all over to enjoy the sugar-white sand and emerald waves of Alabama's beaches. This video can be used to identify the physical features of Alabama and describe how recreational opportunities are affected by the physical environment.
This resource presents a short biography of John F. Kennedy, a Massachusetts politician who served as the 35th President of the United States. Kennedy's presidency came at the height of the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union. There was also no shortage of domestic issues as the Civil Rights movement gained more momentum. Kennedy seemed to be an ally of Dr. King and other activists, but any large role he could have played was cut short by his assassination.
This clip discusses the history of Thanksgiving and acknowledges the different events and people that have influenced its modern-day form. It mentions that the first Thanksgiving celebrated by the Pilgrims and Native Americans was a three-day festival and did not involve foods contemporarily associated with the holiday such as cranberry sauce, pumpkin pie, potatoes, and turkey.
This complete unit plan provides lessons on Ancient Nubia from the Pre-Kerma to the three Kingdoms of Kush eras. The lessons include information about the geography, economics, civics, and government of this time period and civilization. There are videos and additional student resources included, as well as answer keys for the educator. The unit plans include images of artifacts that students will analyze to better understand this time period and the Nubian civilizations.
In this lesson, students research conflicting perspectives of the Mexican War. Additional resources included are a map of the United States from 1839, a recruitment poster, and several videos of first-hand accounts from the Mexican War.
In this video from A Kid Explains History, Quinn explains the history and life of Harriet Tubman and her work on the underground railroad. With his precocious personality and kid-friendly vocabulary, Quinn makes learning history easy and fun for students of all ages. This video can be used to introduce Harriet Tubman, abolitionists, and/or the underground railroad.
A historian goes over the causes leading up to the War of 1812 (trade with England) and major milestones during the war (run-in with Canada).
This is an incredible map of the world that allows students to explore an interactive map of the world, or, play games testing their knowledge of the nations or waterways of the world. Works on all devices!
The lesson will begin by students performing a think-aloud as they consider the similarities of five words: tornado, shelter, basement, underground, and safe room. Students will use a pros and cons graphic organizer as they read articles on three different types of tornado shelters: underground shelters, part of the house shelters, and prebuilt shelters. The students will find the advantages and disadvantages of each type of structure. At the end of the lesson, the teacher will create a table that lists all the shelters and the pros and cons of each. Students will then determine which shelter they feel is most efficient in an "exit slip" response.
This unit was created as part of the ALEX Interdisciplinary Resource Development Summit.
In this activity, students will read The Flag Maker by Susan Campbell Bartoletti, a story about the creation of the first American flag. Students will be able to answer questions based on key details from the story. Students will explore the main character's emotions throughout the story and try to guess what she is feeling.
In this video from PBSLearningMedia, John Green teaches students about America's "peculiar institution," slavery. John will talk about what life was like for a slave in the 19th century the United States, and how slaves resisted oppression, to the degree that was possible. We'll hear about cotton plantations, the violent punishment of slaves, day-to-day slave life, and slave rebellions. Nat Turner, Harriet Tubman, and Whipped Peter all make an appearance. Slavery as an institution is arguably the darkest part of America's history, and we're still dealing with its aftermath 150 years after it ended.
**Sensitive: This resource contains material that may be sensitive for some students. Teachers should exercise discretion in evaluating whether this resource is suitable for their class.
From navigating a cross-country road trip (or just finding the nearest coffee shop) to analyzing election results (or the latest meme on K-pop group popularity), maps play a huge role in how we interpret the world. Today, we're going to talk about the differences between reference maps and thematic maps, take a closer look at how projections play a part in how we perceive maps, and discuss the role of the cartographer (or map maker) in all of this. Maps are incredibly powerful tools and play a crucial role in how we understand the world, but they are also made by people, so it is our job to think critically about how these stories are being presented to us.
This learning activity will teach students about refugees and immigrants. Every day, people leave behind their homes in search of better lives. Some of them are immigrants. Immigrants are people who go to other countries to live there permanently. Many immigrants are looking for better jobs. Some eventually become citizens of their new country.
Students will listen to the audio of an interview conducted in May of 2019 with Ben Raines, the journalist primarily responsible for locating the shipwreck of the Clotilda. Students will collaborate in small groups to identify the month and year of the discovery and to write a caption statement for the event on a timeline. The caption will effectively and clearly express the event and will demonstrate students’ command of the conventions of standard English grammar and usage, capitalization, punctuation, and spelling. The class will look at each of the groups’ written captions and vote using an online tool to select the best caption. The selected caption will be added to an ongoing collaborative timeline started in previous related learning activities of this unit.
In this lesson, students will watch a video on Miranda rights and the Bill of Rights. Students will discuss rights they think should have been included in the Miranda. Then students will rewrite the Miranda and create a presentation with VoiceThread.
This informational link includes 15 audio recordings by jazz greats and introductions that discuss the relevance of the songs.
In this video from PBSLearningMedia, John Green teaches students about American involvement in World War I, which at the time was called the Great War. The United States stayed out of World War I at first because Americans were in an isolationist mood in the early 20th century. That didn't last though, as the affronts piled up and drew the US into the war. You'll learn the war's effects on the home front, some of Woodrow Wilson's XIV Points, and just how the war ended up expanding the power of the government in Americans' lives.
**Sensitive: This resource contains material that may be sensitive for some students. Teachers should exercise discretion in evaluating whether this resource is suitable for their class.
Learn about the Gulf War, the U.S. military action to expel Iraq after it invaded its neighboring country, Kuwait. When the Iraqi leader, Saddam Hussein, ordered Iraqi forces to invade Kuwait, President George H. W. Bush made it clear that the United States would not stand for Iraq’s aggression. The Bush foreign policy team developed an international coalition that used military action to force Iraq out of Kuwait. This resource is part of the Statecraft: The Bush 41 Team collection.
**Sensitive: This resource contains material that may be sensitive for some students. Teachers should exercise discretion in evaluating whether this resource is suitable for their class.
In this learning activity, students will learn about John Brown's raid. John Brown was an American abolitionist who had an extreme take on opposing slavery. He believed the only way to end slavery was through armed fighting.
During this lesson, students will recount a Paul Bunyan tall tale, an entertaining way to identify bodies of water and landforms in the United States. Although Paul Bunyan's Tales did not focus on Alabama, students will create their own narratives after viewing photographs of major mountain ranges, rivers, and lakes throughout Alabama. This lesson will utilize older maps of the United States and Alabama, which are used to remind us that this folk tale was handed down orally until the early 1900s when a newspaper printed several accounts of the tall tale.
This lesson was created in partnership with the Alabama Department of Archives and History.
This lesson, to be used with Underground Railroad: The William Still Story, introduces students to the benefits of recording history. However, they also learn the dangers of sharing information publicly. Social media is explored as an effective, but a sometimes dangerous messaging tool.
In this video from PBSLearningMedia, John Green teaches students about a time of relative tumult in the United States, the 1960s. America was changing rapidly in the 1960s, and rights movements were at the forefront of those changes. Civil Rights were dominant, but the 60s also saw growth in the Women's Movement, the LGBT rights movement, the Latino rights movement, and the American Indian Movement. Also, Americans began to pay a bit more attention to the environment. All this change happened against the backdrop of the Cold War and the Rise of Conservatism. John will teach you about sit-ins, Freedom Rides, The March on Washington, MLK, JFK, LBJ, and NOW.
**Sensitive: This resource contains material that may be sensitive for some students. Teachers should exercise discretion in evaluating whether this resource is suitable for their class.
This segment tells the story of the Battle of Perryville, which took place in Boyle County, KY, in October 1862. Historian Kent Masterson Brown discusses the importance of the Battle of Perryville for the course of the Civil War. It was crucial because the Union Army successfully drove the Confederate Army from Kentucky and ended its attempt to recapture the state.
**Sensitive: This resource contains material that may be sensitive for some students. Teachers should exercise discretion in evaluating whether this resource is suitable for their class.
In this video from PBSLearningMedia, the kids continue their adventure in Old Mobile, a settlement for French colonists in the early 1700s. They view artifacts from these early settlers at the University of South Alabama Archaeology Museum.
Explore images of the fallen city of Richmond, Virginia, the capital of the Confederate States of America during the Civil War. General Ulysses S. Grant tried unsuccessfully to capture Richmond for nearly a year before he took the city on April 2, 1865. The battle would be a crippling defeat for the South and led to Robert E. Lee's surrender to Grant one week later on April 9, 1865, at Appomattox Court House.
Students will make artistic choices in movement and vocalizations to connect and share the essential vocabulary in describing the beginning of civilization in the Indus River Valley as a "flashmob" for other students within their school. Through this method, teachers will front load tier three vocabulary instruction to support literacy in reading informational text.
This activity was created as a result of the Arts COS Resource Development Summit.
In this lesson, students will research one Native American group from each of the six main biomes in North America. Students will use their developing technology and language arts skills to find reliable sources on the internet, evaluate and integrate information from these texts, select a suitable digital platform to share their findings, and create a cohesive presentation showcasing their mastery of the learning outcomes. Students will discover the climate, landforms, water, and other natural resources available within each region and how they were used by the natives living there. Students will explore the relationships between the cultures found within each region and its resources.
This unit was created as part of the ALEX Interdisciplinary Resource Development Summit.
In this interactive game from iCivics, students will help people from around the country to navigate the U.S. court system. Students will distinguish between the federal and state court systems, identify the types and levels of courts within each system, and evaluate case scenarios to send citizens to the correct court. This game can be played during a lesson on court systems for reinforcement or after as an assessment.
You will need to create a free account in order to access some of the content on this site.
In this video from PBSLearningMedia, students learn about Native American winter counts in South Dakota and complete an interesting activity. This video is part of Activity Starters, which is an animated video series. In each episode an animated character introduces a concept and an activity
John Green teaches you about the Crusades embarked upon by European Christians in the 12th and 13th centuries. Our traditional perception of the Crusades as European Colonization thinly veiled in religion isn't quite right. John covers the First through the Fourth Crusades, telling you which were successful, which were well-intentioned yet ultimately destructive, and which were just plain crazy. Before you ask, no, he doesn't cover the Children's Crusade, in which children were provoked to gather for a Crusade, and then promptly sold into slavery by the organizers of said Crusade. While this story is charming, it turns out to be complete and utter hooey.
**Sensitive: This resource contains material that may be sensitive for some students. Teachers should exercise discretion in evaluating whether this resource is suitable for their class.
In this activity, students will study the music of the 1960s to identify social, economic, and political conditions that affected the citizens of the United States during the Vietnam War. Students will ;explain how a piece of music can affect the social, cultural, or historical background of an era.&
This activity was created as a result of the Arts COS Resource Development Summit
In this interactive activity, students will compare various roles of men and women at home and on the battlefront during the Civil War by playing an interactive game. Students choose a mystery character from the Civil War and select objects as clues to their identity.
This video is from Khan Academy and discusses the European Middle Ages to the beginning of the Renaissance. The video gives an overview with maps and touches on the key events like the Great Schism, Crusades, and the Black Death. The video is 10 minutes and 42 seconds in length.
In this video from PBSLearningMedia, students will learn what goods and services are through Funk music with Megan, Timmy, Tammy, and their trusty mutt!
John Green teaches you about the Cold War, which was occasionally hot, but on average, it was cool. In the sense of its temperature, it was by no means cool, man. After World War II, there were basically two big geopolitical powers left to divide up the world. And divide they did. The United States and the Soviet Union divvied up Europe in the aftermath of the war and then proceeded to spend the next 45 years fighting over the rest of the world. It was the great ideological struggle, with the US on the side of capitalism and profit, and the USSR pushing Communism, so-called. While both sides presented themselves as the good guy in this situation, the reality is that there are no good guys. Both parties to the Cold War engaged in forcible regime changes, built up vast nuclear arsenals, and basically got up to dirty tricks. If you had to pick a bad guy though, I would point out that the USSR had no intention of bringing Laika the Cosmonaut Dog home alive. That poor dog never had a shot.
**Sensitive: This resource contains material that may be sensitive for some students. Teachers should exercise discretion in evaluating whether this resource is suitable for their class
