Students will participate in an interactive website activity from the Tenement Museum in New York City. Then, students will create a postcard describing the experiences of immigrants in the United States in the early 1900s.
This resource was created as a part of the ALEX Resource Development Summit.
In this activity, students explore the meaning behind memorials and monuments. Then, students design and build their own monument.
This article from Khan Academy provides an overview of the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon which resulted in the United States' declaration of a Global War on Terror. Students can read the article and answer the questions at the end as an assessment. The article can be assigned through Google Classroom.
In this video, students learn about Abraham Lincoln, Honest Abe. Such a great nickname. We certainly wish that was our nickname. Abraham Lincoln was the president who led the country through the Civil War and abolished slavery. He rocked that black top hat. Let's all give him a pat on the back.
In this informational material, students learn about meridians, latitude, and longitude. Students will learn how latitude and longitude lines are measured and why they are important.
Meet the famed Tuskegee Airmen in this episode of Yellowhammer History Hunt and find out how they helped the Allies win World War II while fighting racism at home. Learn about how their accomplishments in the air and on the ground led President Harry Truman to desegregate the US military.
In this learning activity, students will gather information about personal experiences of survivors of Japanese-American internment camps during World War II. Students communicate the information they learn by creating their own comic to retell the story of the survivors. Resource links to videos, journals, articles, comic book template and artwork are included in the material.
This classroom resource from Epic! is a book that traces the development of inventions in communication technology – from the earliest steps to our current technology. This book can be used to introduce a lesson on describing families and communities of the past and identifying ways everyday life has changed.
Note: You will need to create a free account to access this resource.
With their impressive city structures and advanced astronomical understanding, the Maya civilization once dominated Mesoamerica. Learn about the Maya's influence in mathematics, how their cosmic calendars advised agricultural matters, and how the legacy of this ancient civilization endures through Maya people today.
This clip discusses the history of the Christmas holiday and some of the misconceptions surrounding it. It also explains how the modern form of the holiday came to fruition with its cards, gifts, trees, and icons such as Santa Claus.
This resource from the Holocaust Center for Humanity provides a step-by-step instructional outline to teach about the Holocaust to students in secondary grades. The instructional material incorporates various literacy skills into the social studies content. There are options provided for 1-2 weeks of instruction, 3-5 weeks of instruction, and complete units. All of the resources required to teach the lessons are included in this document. In addition, this resource provides a Best Practices document to support educators in teaching this difficult topic.
In this learning activity, students learn about the life of Martin Luther King, Jr. A link to National Geographic's Xpeditions Atlas Maps is included. This activity is recommended to be used with Martin's Big Words by Doreen Rappaport.
In this video from A Kid Explains History, Quinn explains The Berlin Wall including why it was built and why the wall came down in 1989. With his precocious personality and kid-friendly vocabulary, Quinn is able to explain history in easy-to-understand terms. This video can be used to introduce major foreign events and issues of the John F. Kennedy Administration.
A historian breaks down the signing of the Declaration of Independence, talking about the struggles and visualizing the start of America's start as a new country.
In this interactive online game, Ms. Information is traveling the country trying to re-write history with her false information! Can you stop her? She has traveled to the Missouri River to change the story of the events in the Lewis and Clark expedition. Use your knowledge of these causes to foil her plan once and for all!
In this learning activity, students will choose a key revolutionary leader from the American Revolution and research that leader. Using Canva or another graphic design platform, students will create an authentic-looking trading card of that person including his or her contributions to the American Revolution. It allows students to review material at the end of a unit of study.
This is a group activity that allows students to use predictions to learn about the lifestyle of American colonists.
In this activity, students will be able to recite the first verse and paraphrase "The Star-Spangled Banner." Students will also be able to explain why Francis Scott Key wrote the words to "The Star-Spangled Banner" in 1814.
In this video from PBSLearningMedia, John Green teaches students about the presidency of Andrew Jackson. Jackson's election was more democratic than any previous presidential election. More people were able to vote, and they picked a doozie. Jackson was a well-known war hero, and he was elected over his longtime political enemy, John Quincy Adams. Once Jackson was in office, he did more to expand executive power than any of the previous occupants of the White House. He used armed troops to collect taxes, refused to enforce legislation and supreme court legislation, and hired and fired his staff based on support in elections. He was also the first president to regularly wield the presidential veto as a political tool. Was he a good president? Watch this video and draw your own conclusions.
In this video, we're going to talk about how the Earth moves, but to do that, we're going to have to go way back to the early days of the galaxy. Processes that happened before the Earth even formed have led us to the geographic patterns and processes that create Earth's environments and support all living things. We'll talk about how the Earth rotates, the effects of it being slightly tilted, how events like sea ice melting impact how the Earth wobbles, and talk about how our elliptical orbit gives us seasons. So many of our life decisions are influenced by the motion of Earth. It guides where we decide to live, what food we eat, or even what weather we experience, which we'll talk about more next time.
This learning activity provides a reading passage about Cinco de Mayo, vocabulary support, and comprehension questions. The reading level is 2nd grade, so it is best to read the text aloud to the class instead of independent reading. Cinco de Mayo means the 5th of May in Spanish. Many people think that Cinco de Mayo is a celebration of Mexican Independence Day. But it isn’t. Mexico actually celebrates Independence Day on September 16th. On that day in 1810, Mexico declared independence from Spain. They decided the people in Mexico would have their own government instead of being ruled by the Spanish government.
Note: You will need to create a free account to access this resource.
Students will be presented with Senate Resolution 315, which was passed in 2019 to memorialize the discovery of the wreckage of the ship Clotilda. The resolution identifies Mobile as a site of slave trade, recognizes Africatown as a significant historic site in Alabama, and identifies significant social and cultural contributions of the survivors of the ship Clotilda. Students will have the opportunity to read the resolution silently, discuss it, and practice reading it aloud. Finally, students will demonstrate fluency in reading the informational text by presenting a read-aloud of the resolution and discussing the important dates noted in the resolution to determine what should be added to the class timeline started in previous related learning activities.
In this lesson, students will work collaboratively to create a presentation showcasing the various geographic features around the world and use the appropriate academic vocabulary. Students will present their group slide to the class. Students will independently write a compare and contrast paragraph about two geographic features.
In this lesson, students will be divided into groups and pretend to be a family being relocated to an internment camp. They will read from the online exhibit A More Perfect Union and make decisions about what they will take with them to the camp. After discussing with their groups, students will visit the "Reflections" section and write a response to at least one of the topics.
In this video from PBSLearningMedia, John Green teaches students about the United States in the 1920s. They were known as the roaring 20s, but not because there were lions running around everywhere. In the 1920s, America's economy was booming, and all kinds of social changes were in progress. Hollywood, flappers, jazz, there was all kinds of stuff going on in the 20s. John will teach you about Charleston, the many Republican presidents of the 1920s, laissez-faire capitalism, jazz, consumer credit, the resurgent Klan, and all kinds of other stuff.
Vivian Howard and “soul food scholar” Adrian Miller visit Black-owned Boogie’s Turkey BBQ in Elm City, N.C., in this clip from the How Do You 'Cue episode. Miller offers Howard a crash course in the Native American origins of barbecue and the unsung contributions of African Americans to cherished barbecue traditions.
Students will read the memory of a traumatic childhood incident of William Minner near his hometown of Spiro, Oklahoma. In this reading passage, students read a story about the separation of water fountains during segregation. A video, vocabulary support, and comprehension questions are included for this activity.
The lesson will explain why significant leaders of the Creek War disrupted the Alabama Creek Indian Headsmen and the government. The disruption would be solved through negotiation. The negotiating Creek Indians did not obtain full restoration of their land, however, they did accept a compromise.
This lesson was created in partnership with the Alabama Department of Archives and History.
We’re going to step back from hardware and software, and take a closer look at how the backdrop of the cold war and space race and the rise of consumerism and globalization brought us from huge, expensive codebreaking machines in the 1940s to affordable handhelds and personal computers in the 1970s. This is an era that saw huge government-funded projects - like the race to the moon. And afterward, a shift towards the individual consumer, commoditization of components, and the rise of the Japanese electronics industry.
This interactive activity from PBSLearningMedia helps students learn how everyday people can do amazing things. To get started, students choose from a wall of historic figures to learn more about them or create their own!
Chamizal National Memorial sits on land that once belonged to Mexico. What is now a park was once the focus of a century-long border dispute that began when the Rio Grande River changed course. In 1963, a treaty ended that standoff and three years later this park was created as a monument to the friendship between the U.S. and Mexico and the culture we share.
In this lesson, students explore a variety of documents highlighting various issues and perspectives that led to the Cold War and address the question: Who was primarily responsible for the Cold War, the United States or the Soviet Union? Students will read and analyze four primary documents about the Cold War including excerpts from Churchill's Iron Curtain Speech and the Truman Doctrine, 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.
William Weatherford was a Creek leader during the Creek War of 1813-1814. This lesson explores who William Weatherford was as a person, as a Creek leader, and his role in the Creek War of 1813-1814. Students will view a PowerPoint, read an excerpt from an article about William Weatherford from the Encyclopedia of Alabama, share information with peers, and view the engraving of William Weatherford surrendering to Andrew Jackson. At the end of the lesson, the students will draw a conclusion about William Weatherford and support it with evidence from the lesson. This lesson should be done in conjunction with studying the Creek War of 1813-1814 so that his role in this historical event can be better understood.
This lesson was created as a part of the Alabama Bicentennial Commission's Curriculum Development Project.
In this interactive game from iCivics, students will decide a tough case while learning about what jurors discuss in the deliberation room. Students will choose from different civil cases, analyze evidence, weigh testimony, and use the right arguments to reach a fair and impartial verdict. This game can be played during a lesson on the responsibilities of citizens for reinforcement or after as an assessment. The game can be played in a whole group or individually.
You will need to create a free account in order to access some of the content on this site.
In this video from PBSLearningMedia, explore Alaska Native history and culture using the 11-minute story "Grandpa's Drum" in this episode from the PBS KIDS series MOLLY OF DENALI™. (Move the cursor over the video progress bar to locate the story at 01:00.) An old photograph sends Molly and friend Tooey on a mission to find out why Grandpa Nat no longer sings or plays his drum. As they uncover Grandpa's past, using visual clues and the internet, they understand more about their own heritage and the importance of cultural identity. As students explore the importance of diverse cultures and honoring traditions, as well as Alaska Native lives then and now, they also learn about finding and using informational texts.
