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In this video from PBSLearningMedia, students learn the Electoral College is the process by which we elect the President of the United States. When a voter casts his/her vote for President, they’re not actually voting for them directly. Instead, they are telling the state which party’s designees should serve as the state’s electors.

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The Electoral College consists of 538 electors. A majority of 270 electoral votes is required to elect the President. Nebraska has a different approach. There are only 2 states that can split votes based on congressional districts (Nebraska has 5 electors). This creates multiple popular vote contests in these states, which could lead to a split electoral vote. In the past two decades, Nebraska has split the vote twice; 2008 and 2020.

John Green presents Mesopotamia and the early civilizations that arose around the Fertile Crescent. Topics covered include the birth of territorial kingdoms, empires, Neo-Assyrian torture tactics, sacred marriages, ancient labor practices, the world's first law code, and the great failed romance of John's undergrad years.

**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 interactive game from iCivics, students will learn to control the budget of the federal government. They will choose how federal revenues should be raised and how taxpayers’ money should be spent. They must also decide how to fund programs that are important to them, without setting taxes too high or borrowing too much money. This game can be played when teaching a lesson on the economy for reinforcement or after as an assessment.

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In this video from PBSLearningMedia, students learn as the growth of the automobile industry continued and more and more people purchased cars, a system of good highways was in demand. United States legislators and senators became involved in passing bills to establish federal highways and to provide monies for the construction and maintenance of those roads. This boom in the building of new roadways led to both good and bad practices and called for innovative ways to raise money to match the demand.

John Green teaches you about the changes wrought by contact between the Old World and the New. John does this by exploring the totally awesome history book The Columbian Exchange by Alfred Crosby, Jr. After Columbus "discovered" the Americas, European conquerors, traders, and settlers brought all manner of changes to the formerly isolated continents. Disease and invasive plant and animal species remade the New World, usually in negative ways. While native people, plants, and animals were being displaced in the Americas, the rest of the world was benefitting from American imports, especially foods like maize, tomatoes, potatoes, pineapple, blueberries, sweet potatoes, and manioc. Was the Columbian Exchange a net positive? It's debatable. So debate. 

This resource contains footage of an individual taking "the Cinnamon Challenge" a previously viral internet food challenge that has been deemed unsafe by medical professionals. Please discourage students from mimicking this practice. 

**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 is a collection of photos of Native American weaponry. Students can view these primary sources to gain an understanding of past American Indian cultures and artifacts.

This video from Khan Academy is an overview of a series of independence movements in the Americas in the late 1700s and early 1800s which were sparked by the Enlightenment and conflict in Europe. This includes revolutions that will lead to the United States, Haiti, Mexico, Venezuela, Columbia, Panama, Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Paraguay, Uruguay, Brazil, and Argentina.  The video can be used to introduce a lesson on comparing revolutions in Latin America and the Caribbeans. The video is 5 minutes and 48 seconds in length.

In this video from PBSLearningMedia, Craig Benzine teaches students about the U.S. government's separation of powers and the system of checks and balances. In theory, the legislative branch, the executive branch, and the judicial branch are designed to keep each other in check and to keep any branch from becoming too powerful. In reality, the system was designed to keep the president from becoming some kind of autocrat. For the most part, it has worked.

In this episode, Craig Benzine explores the leadership structure of congress. We'll break out the clone machine to examine the responsibilities of the speaker of the house, the majority, and minority leaders, as well as the majority and minority whips in both the Senate and the House. As the leadership heavily influences assignments to committees and acts as the primary point of contact with the media, they wield significant power in influencing the public dialog.

In this activity, second graders investigate American symbols and their value to the American people. Students learn the history of some American symbols and why American citizens hold these symbols so dear to their heart.

This article from Khan Academy gives an overview of the economic downturn of the 1970s and the OPEC oil embargo of 1973-1974. This article can be used when describing the changing social and cultural conditions in the US in the 1970s. Students can read the article and then answer the questions at the end as an assessment.  The article can be read in a whole group setting or individually.

In this Emmy Award-winning documentary film co-presented by HBO and The Museum of Jewish Heritage, a new generation of students is introduced to Holocaust history. When 10-year-old Elliott asks his 90-year-old great-grandfather, Jack, about the number tattooed on his arm, he sparks an intimate conversation about Jack’s life that spans happy memories of childhood in Poland, the loss of his family, surviving Auschwitz, and finding a new life in America. Their tender exchange is woven with historical footage and hand-painted animation to tell a heartbreaking story of Jewish life in Eastern Europe before and during the Holocaust. The video is approximately 19 minutes in length.

Adriene Hill and Jacob Clifford teach you about one of the fundamental economic ideas, supply and demand. What are supply and demand? Well, you’ll have to watch the video to really understand it, but it’s kind of important for everything economically. Supply and demand set prices, and indicate to manufacturers how much to produce.

In this lesson plan, students investigate the experiences of immigrants in the mid-nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. After reviewing evidence, they develop an argument to decide if the American Dream came true for the immigrants who came to New York. Click the Download PDF or DOC to access the following additional resources:

• Several photographs of immigrants at home and work.
• Emma Lazarus' poem, The New Colossus.
• A Scholastic video: Virtual Field trip to Ellis Island.
• A link to an interactive website exploring Ellis Island.
• A link to the Lower East Side Tenement Museum where students can construct an interactive immigrant character.

This article from Khan Academy provides an overview of Manifest Destiny. In the mid-nineteenth century, newspaper editor John O'Sullivan coined the term "manifest destiny" to describe the belief that God intended for the United States to occupy North America from Atlantic to Pacific. Students can read the article as an introduction to a lesson on expansionism prior to the Civil War and answer the questions at the end of the article as an assessment.  The article can be read in a whole group setting or individually. It can be assigned through Google Classroom.

English colonists, including John Smith and John Rolfe, arrive on new land via the Chesapeake Bay and are greeted by curious onlookers who are native to the land. This land will eventually become the Colony of Virginia. This scene foreshadows the end of the ancient civilization, the Powhatan.

Social psychologist Stanley Milgram conducts a series of radical experiments that test the willingness of individuals to obey authority. When the inflictor is interviewed as to why he continued to send electric shocks after each incorrect answer even when he was begged to stop, the inflictor implies that it wasn't that serious because it was the subject that made the request. This clip illustrates the conflict between personal conscience and obedience to authority. This clip can be used when teaching about types of methodology and strategies used by researchers in different psychological studies. 

This video from the Daily Dose provides a 3-minute micro-learning film on the Acropolis, which has been inhabited by Greeks and foreign invaders for thousands of years. The Acropolis is a city in Greece known for its splendorous architecture. 

In this lesson, students will analyze President John F. Kennedy's response to the buildup of Soviet nuclear missiles and weapons sites in Cuba during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Resources included in this learning activity are surveillance photographs of Cuban missile sites, the map prepared for President Kennedy showing the range of the ballistic missiles in Cuba, and President John F. Kennedy's October 22, 1962 address to the nation.

This classroom resource from Epic! is a book all about map types. It can be used to help students identify landforms and bodies of water on a map or globe. The age range is 8-11 years old. The AR level is 3.5.

This video is a short biography of Ernest Hemingway, an influential 20th-century author, and journalist who is best known for works such as The Sun Also Rises and The Old Man and the Sea. He is one of the most famous writers of the "Lost Generation," people who came of age during or shortly after the first World War and became disillusioned by the senseless death and destruction

This learning activity includes a biography of Amelia Earhart and several other fun activities for students to build their knowledge about the first woman to fly across the Atlantic. The activities can be printed or completed online. 

In this learning activity, students use Google Maps to find their school and to locate the closest body of water. The activity includes links to additional resources.

In this video from PBSLearningMedia, John Green teaches students about the American Revolution. John will teach you about the major battles of the war and discuss the strategies on both sides. Everyone is familiar with how this war played out for the Founding Fathers; they got to become the Founding Fathers. But what did the revolution mean to the common people in the United States? For white, property-owning males, it was pretty sweet. They gained rights that were a definite step up from being British Colonial citizens. For everyone else, the short-term gains were not clear. Women's rights were unaffected, and slaves remained in slavery. As for poor white folks, they remained poor and disenfranchised. The reality is it took a long time for this whole democracy thing to get underway, and the principles of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness weren't immediately available to all these newly minted Americans.

Yadina is excited when she’s chosen to be the leader of her Nature Troop, thinking this a great first step toward becoming President one day. The only problem is, she isn’t entirely sure how to be a good leader. To the Secret Museum! Our heroes are sent back in time to meet one of the greatest leaders in the history of the United States: George Washington. Yadina is awe-struck as she gets to meet her country’s very first president, who offers to take them on a fishing trip. As he leads them through the woods to the fishing hole, George is polite, helpful, and supportive, showing Yadina that a good leader takes care of his or her team.

In this lesson, students investigate a series of primary documents to address the question: Why did the United States government incarcerate Japanese Americans during World War II? Students will watch a newsreel from 1942 that the government made to explain the internment. Then, students will read four other primary documents about the internment to answer the essential question. 

The website includes lesson plans, PowerPoint presentations, primary source documents, and student graphic organizers. Teachers will need to create a free account to access the materials. 

In this lesson, students identify the purpose and goals of education in American society and explain why African Americans chose to challenge segregated education.