examines one of the most extensive and best-preserved concentrations of prehistoric rock art in the U.S. See photos and learn about the people who made these 250,000 drawings on rocks at China Lake, California, 1000 to 3000 years ago.

This breakout activity provides teachers and students an interactive way to demonstrate their learning about cryptography, code-breaking, and historic ciphers. Clues are provided, along with additional hints you can choose to provide to students so that students solve ciphers and learn what time their army is planning to raid the enemy camp.

In this lesson, students will learn about one of the most significant and successful spy rings in American History. They will also actually conduct some of the same techniques and demonstrate them to the rest of the class.

In this lesson, students will review the development of the Constitution.  To experience what this might be like,  students will work together to create a set of rules, procedures, rights, and responsibilities needed to safely use computing devices and networks in our school. When they have finished they will compare their list to the school’s Acceptable Use Policy.

Martin Luther King, Jr. Day is the only federal holiday designated as a national day of service to encourage all Americans to volunteer to improve their communities. In this learning experience students will learn more about Martin Luther King Jr. and how he marched for causes he believed in. As a result of this learning experience students will choose their own important cause to walk or advocate for in order to honor and celebrate Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s life and legacy of advocacy and leadership.

Students will research how the development of the atomic bomb affected people in World War II, participate in a debate about the bomb's use, and investigate how it has affected people's lives since 1945.

This inquiry focuses on the concept of equality as defined by the Declaration of Independence and the rights enumerated within. The questions, tasks, and sources in this inquiry asks students to examine the evolution of our notion of “all men are created equal” and how we have lived up to (or not lived up to) that concept throughout the course of U.S. history.

Americans elect a president through the state-by-state mechanism of the Electoral College rather than direct nationwide popular vote. Today, all but two states award all of their electoral votes to the statewide winner.

This is a "remix" of a previous resource: https://goopenva.org/courses/a-defense-of-the-electoral-college

It has been remixed to add a visual map and additional student questions.

Designed for two 90-minute class periods. First students will imagine they are stranded on an island with no way to escape. It has all necessary resources to survive, and they have been tasked with creating their own system of government. Students will work in groups to create a government system, using slides or a poster to display their work.In the next class period, groups will take turns presentig their form of government to the class, and peers will ask them questions about their form of government and discuss if it would last several geerations. Includes Lesson Plan as well as Google Doc/PDF of student handouts and teacher/peer rubrics

Students will analyze a document that shows the challenges African Americans faced in receiving the freedom they were guaranteed with the 13th Amendment. The Indenture of Apprenticeship between John Foster and Jeff, a four-year-old African American, shows how Southerners found unique ways to keep African Americans in servitude. This activity is designed to engage students in an analysis of the success of the 13th Amendment. Students should have background knowledge in the Civil War and the goals of Reconstruction.

Students will analyze primary sources from the Reconstruction Era to determine if Reconstruction was a success or a failure. They will place evidence on a scale for a visual representation of their evaluation.Teachers can modify and assign this Google Doc. You will need to make a copy of the document to access it.

Students will review the purpose of an amendment, analyze the 13th Amendment to the Constitution, and consider the reasons for the date of approval. Students should have some background knowledge in the Civil War, including the causes of the war and the views of the Union and Confederacy. 

is a travel itinerary that highlights 45 historic places that help tell the story of Spanish colonization of California. Learn about forts, churches, adobe houses, historic districts, and other places. Find out about the Presidio, which was established in 1769 as the base for Spain's colonization efforts and was the first permanent European settlement on the Pacific Coast.

This site provides more than 40 lesson ideas developed by teachers to help students learn about Eastern Woodland Native Americans who lived in the upper Mississippi River valley (southwestern Wisconsin and northeast Iowa) from about 500 BC to 1300 AD and who built effigies -- ceremonial burial mounds shaped to represent bears, eagles, falcons, bison, deer, turtles, lizards, and other creatures.

This activity is a creative way to assess or review the eight geographic regions of North America. It should be administered after all of the regions and their characteristics have been taught. Students will have a map that outlines all eight regions. Then, they are tasked to pick from a variety of foods to represent each region.

The most democratic body in the federal government, hundreds of representatives for the House are elected every other year. This site maps elections from before the Civil War until today showing changing patterns across regions and between urban and rural areas.

This collection uses primary sources to explore the Equal Rights Amendment. Digital Public Library of America Primary Source Sets are designed to help students develop their critical thinking skills and draw diverse material from libraries, archives, and museums across the United States. Each set includes an overview, ten to fifteen primary sources, links to related resources, and a teaching guide. These sets were created and reviewed by the teachers on the DPLA's Education Advisory Committee.

This is a remix of a previous resource:
Franky Abbott, Samantha Gibson, (2016) The Equal Rights Amendment. Retrieved from the Digital Public Library of America, http://dp.la/primary-source-sets/the-equal-rights-amendment

The remix includes new visuals and questions pertaining to the renewed interest in passing the ERA.

This activity explores the push and pull of moving from Richmond, Virginia to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania for 4 siblings during the 1920s by examining primary and secondary sources and using a decision-making model. This activity includes topics such as the impact of segregation and discrimination against African Americans, and the impact of Black migration from the south to the north.

This activity can be used before teaching the unit on exploration to allow students to obtain some background knowledge, or it can be used as a review after the unit is taught. This activity uses a summarization technique to simplify events surrounding European explorers coming to North America.

In small groups, students will be assigned two of the first ten amendments and pose the questions, “Which of these two amendments do you think is more important?” and “Why do you believe this?” in a survey of ten classmates. Then they will collect and organize the data electronically to create two visual representations of their information. Students will add their raw data and visualizations to a shared slideshow to present their findings to the class and explain why they chose this particular visualization model and what conclusions they can draw from their survey responses.This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. 2010256.Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.