As the United States began the most deadly conflict in its history, the American Civil War, it was also laying the groundwork for one of its greatest achievements in transportation. The First Transcontinental Railroad, approved by Congress in the midst of war, helped connect the country in ways never before possible. Americans could travel from coast to coast with speed, changing how Americans lived, traded, and communicated while disrupting ways of life practiced for centuries by Native American populations. The coast-to-coast railroad was the result of the work of thousands of Americans, many of whom were Chinese immigrant laborers who worked under discriminatory pressures and for lower wages than their Irish counterparts. These laborers braved incredibly harsh conditions to lay thousands of miles of track. That track—the work of two railroad companies competing to lay the most miles from opposite directions—came together with the famous Golden Spike at Promontory Summit in Utah on May 10, 1869. This exhibition explores the construction of the first Transcontinental Railroad and its impact on American westward expansion. This exhibition was created as part of the DPLA’s Digital Curation Program by the following students as part of Professor Krystyna Matusiak's course "Digital Libraries" in the Library and Information Science program at the University of Denver: Jenifer Fisher, Benjamin Hall, Nick Iwanicki, Cheyenne Jansdatter, Sarah McDonnell, Timothy Morris and Allan Van Hoye.

In this lesson, students will be introduced to the idea of decomposition. Specifically the lesson caters to math word problems, but could be easily modified to any subject (as found in the modificaitons section of the lesson plan). Students will engage with each other and the vocab to work through an easy process to decompose word problems into manaeagable pieces as a strategy to solve. All activities are low prep and can be modified to your needs. This can be a stand alone lesson or expanded by using Part 2 and Part 3 to deepen understanding through coding activities. 

Have students step into the shoes of one of the individuals you are studying or have them time travel to an event in the past by having them create a mock instagram post using the website linked in the attached document.  The document has all of the instructions written in student friendly language.

This lesson examines what people are doing to protect Earth’s clean water supply through the text Young Water Protectors, a story about the Standing Rock Sioux tribe and their efforts to prevent the Dakota Access Pipeline. Students will examine the Standing Rock perspective, and consider what needs to be done to protect our water sources. Students will respond to this activity through writing prompts and represent one of those prompts through programming in Twine.This lesson was created through a partnership between CodeVA and the Virginia Tribal Education Consortium (VTEC).