Unit Plan
Annenberg Foundation

Annenberg Learner: American Passages: Utopian Promise: Mary Rowlandson

For Students 9th - 10th
After immigrating to the New England colonies, being captured by Wampanoag Indians, Puritan and author acclimates herself to the Native American culture as a form of survival and documents her time kept captive. See "Mary Rowlandson...
Website
Smithsonian Institution

National Museum of American History: A Vision of Puerto Rico

For Students 9th - 10th
A virtual look at a wide-ranging mix of art and artifacts that visually represent Puerto Rico's culture and history. With thematic overviews of everyday life on the island, music, families, and religion along with many useful educational...
Unit Plan
Annenberg Foundation

Annenberg Learner: American Passages: Exploring Borderlands: Gloria Anzaldua

For Students 9th - 10th
This resource features Gloria Anzaldua, a "hybrid" or Chicana author from Texas, who writes about the Chicano culture and draws particular attention to the women to empower them. Click on "Gloria Anzaldua Activities" to explore connected...
Website
University of North Carolina

Documenting the American South (Doc South)

For Students K - 1st Standards
Provides primary sources for the study of southern history, culture and literature. DocSouth includes sixteen thematic collections of books, diaries, posters, artifacts, letters, oral history interviews, and songs.
Website
Smithsonian Institution

National Museum of the American Indian: Collections

For Students 9th - 10th
Search the collections of the National Museum of the American Indian, which include a representative sample of this Smithsonian Institution's object and historic photo collections.
Unit Plan
Annenberg Foundation

Annenberg Learner: Artifacts and Fiction: Workshop in American Literature

For Teachers 9th - 10th
This workshop, which is divided into eight segments, teaches how to use primary source artifacts from a variety of genres to support the teaching and learning of specific pieces of literature. The genres include visual arts, political...
Website
Smithsonian Institution

National Museum of the American Indian: Great Masters of Mexican Folk Art

For Students 9th - 10th
Explore Mexican Folk Art by looking at different types of material and what they are used to make. Choose from clay, metal, leather, paper, plant fibers, stone, wood, and more.
Unit Plan
Annenberg Foundation

Annenberg Learner: American Passages: Slavery and Freedom: Sorrow Songs

For Students 9th - 10th
Sorrow Songs are examined as the music the African American slaves of the antebellum South to express both sadness and despair as well as well as hope for better. See "Sorrow Songs Activities" for related artifacts and activities.
Graphic
Other

Ohio History: Virtual First Ohioans

For Students 9th - 10th
This award-winning resource from the Ohio Historical Society presents Ohio's first cultures: PaleoIndian, Archaic, Woodland, Mississippian, and Late Prehistoric Period cultures. Click on each period for additional information and great...
Graphic
Smithsonian Institution

National Museum of the American Indian: Creation's Journey

For Students 9th - 10th
A virtual tour of two exhibits that were created for the National Museum of the American Indian but students from four American Indian schools. The exhibits display a wide variety of American Indian artifacts with descriptions of each...
Interactive
Smithsonian Institution

National Museum of American History: Within These Walls

For Students 4th - 8th
If these walls could talk! Explore American History through one house that has experienced over 200 years of history. This interactive site has pictures of artifacts, primary sources, and music from 1757-1945. Be a detective and guess...
Website
Other

Labor Arts: Solidarity Forever: A Look at Wobbly Culture

For Students 9th - 10th
An excellent collection of artifacts that highlight the aims and aspirations of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW). Members of the IWW, known as Wobblies, played a unique role in the American labor movement. Artifacts include...
Website
Other

Native Peoples of America: Adena

For Students 9th - 10th
An informative look at the Adena culture and their burial mounds, food resources, and artifacts found in the burial mounds.Find links to additional information on the web about this early Native American culture.
Website
Other

Jews in America: Portal to Jewish American History

For Students 9th - 10th
Complete with music from Aaron Copland, the Center for Jewish History provides an interactive website that traces the history of Jews in the United States from 1654 until today. Authors provide a searchable gallery of photographs,...
PPT
Virginia History Series

Virginia History Series: Indians of Virginia [Pdf]

For Students 9th - 10th
Amazing visual presentation about the history of Indians in Virginia. included in this comprehensive slideshow are startling pictures and maps tracing the Native American culture from prehistoric times through the 1600's.
Website
Other

Musee Du Quai Branly: Indigenous Art of Africa, the Americas, Asia, and Oceania

For Students 9th - 10th
Examine a collection of artifacts produced by indigenous cultures Africa, America, Asia, and Oceania in three-dimensions. Includes location maps and helpful commentary.
Lesson Plan
Library of Congress

Loc: Teachers: The Grapes of Wrath

For Teachers 9th - 10th
A Library of Congress lesson on "The Grapes of Wrath," through which young scholars discover how cultural artifacts from the book support its themes and see connections "between the social, cultural, and literary contexts of literature."
Website
Other

Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History: The Chumash People of California

For Students 9th - 10th
A thorough look at the Chumash people of California. Read about their unique plank canoes, basketry, language, and cave paintings. Many pictures of artifacts and drawings accompany the information.
Unit Plan
Smithsonian Institution

Smithsonian Learning Lab: Hispanic Heritage Teaching Resources

For Teachers 9th - 10th
This site is your link to teaching resources about Hispanic heritage. Choose from topics such as Musica del Pueblo, Mexican America, Latino Voices in American Art, or many others. Explore links to interactive exhibits, lesson plans, and...
Unit Plan
National Endowment for the Humanities

Neh: Edsit Ement: Mapping the Past

For Teachers 6th - 8th Standards
Students will examine European world maps from the Middle Ages, the Age of Discovery, and the period of New World exploration. They will then look at maps that record the early exploration of the American West and collect present-day...
Lesson Plan
Library of Congress

Loc: Teachers: America at the Centennial

For Teachers 9th - 10th
A lesson plan requiring student to analyze primary documents from the Philadelphia Centennial Exposition of 1876. Students interpret what these historical artifacts say "about the lives and values of Americans in 1876" among other things.
Professional Doc
Annenberg Foundation

Annenberg Learner: Placing Artifacts in Time

For Students 9th - 10th Standards
This is from an American history course designed for teachers to enrich their knowledge and their teaching practice. This interactive focuses on how history views Pocahontas. It looks at how historical events are re-interpreted as time...
Lesson Plan
PBS

Pbs Teachers: Scientific American: Science Safari: City of Gold

For Teachers 9th - 10th
Investigate the challenges facing archeologists when dealing with local cultures near dig sites, and consider the difficulty of remaining sensitive to the past yet still being able to learn from it.
Website
Other

University of Tennessee: Archaeology and the Native Peoples of Tennessee

For Students 9th - 10th
Lots of pictures make this an easy-to-understand site on the indigenous peoples of Tennessee beginning with the Paleoindian Period to the present. Culture, homes, history, and artifacts are discussed.