In this lesson, students will view the short documentary about current North Carolina resident Peter Stein, a Holocaust survivor who was born in 1936 in Prague, Czechoslovakia to a Jewish father and a Catholic mother, just two years before Nazi occupation. His father was forced into slave labor and later deported to Terezin (Theresienstadt) - a work and death camp - and managed to survive, but his family of eight were all killed. Through the platform of Peter’s moving story, students will explore the realities of life in Terezin, while comparing this to the 1944 propaganda campaign Hitler launched with Terezin at its core. Based on Peter’s insights and words of wisdom, students will then explore what they believe the most important lessons of the Holocaust are by creating their own mural.

Students examine newly uncovered research on what took place during those 13 days in the fall of 1962. They?ll decide whether the crisis, a turning point in the Cold War, stands as an example of cool leadership under pressure or a cascade of error and miscalculation. Extension activities allow them to dig deeper into factors that made the Cuban missile crisis such a turning point, and explore continuing or potential conflicts that might put today?s world at similar risk.

Students consider how ordinary citizens contributed to and experienced the fall of the Berlin Wall. They then develop scrapbooks depicting how people experienced the wall and use the books as symbolic bricks in building a classroom Berlin Wall.

In this lesson, students consider how ordinary citizens contributed to and experienced the fall of the Berlin Wall. They then develop scrapbooks depicting how people experienced the wall and use the books as symbolic bricks in building a classroom Berlin Wall.

The objective of this lesson is to understand the constellation of events - both macro and local - that enabled the sudden and peaceful reunification of the two post-World War II German states in 1989-90, to examine the symbolic significance of the fall of the Berlin Wall and German reunification for Germans as well as for Europeans, to focus on the immediate hopes and also fears felt by the diverse populations during 1989-90, and to explore the short- and long-term implications of the division of German and the reunification of two states with diverse political and economic systems.

Investigate the progression of communist expansion immediately following World War II.

GeoInquiries are designed to be fast and easy-to-use instructional resources that incorporate advanced web mapping technology. Each 15-minute activity in a collection is intended to be presented by the instructor from a single computer/projector classroom arrangement. No installation, fees, or logins are necessary to use these materials and software.

This presentation is intended for use with the lesson plan "How and Why Did the Holocaust Occur?: Exploring Action and Inaction through the Survival Story of Esther Gutman Lederman." In this lesson, students will closely examine the various categories and actions (or inactions) of people during the Holocaust, including the perpetrators, collaborators, bystanders, resisters, rescuers, victims, and survivors. Students will explore each category in an attempt to gain an intricate understanding about how something as unfathomable as the Holocaust occurred. Students will then identify these categories of people while viewing the incredible story of Holocaust survivor, Esther Gutman Lederman. Esther spent 22 months hiding in a home owned by a Christian family in Poland. She is alive because this Christian family risked their own lives to save her and 4 other Jews. Students will culminate their exploration by focusing on the incredible actions of victims and survivors (such as Esther), resisters, and rescuers, as they create a medal of honor to bestow on a person or group of their choice.

 Inquiry DescriptionStudents will examine resources to determine how fighting over power led to both World War II and the Cold War using primary and secondary sources.  

 Overview of how decolonization has led to modern day problems throughout formerly colonized countries. Students will see decolonization, the neo-colonialism that followed, and how that affected the former countries. 

The atrocities committed by the Japanese in China during the 1930s are well documented. Various Japanese textbooks, however, have downplayed or overlooked the scale and scope of these events. In this lesson, students examine how two textbooks ? one Japanese and the other Chinese ? depict what happened during the Japanese occupation of Nanking. Students then corroborate each textbook with an excerpt from historian Jonathan Spence?s The Search for Modern China.

This lesson begins with a lecture/presentation about the Kurds and their history/geography. Students are then asked to divide into pairs, randomly choose a place and time in modern Kurdish history in which their character will live, conduct research on the historical situation, fill out the research question guide and the options pros and cons guide, and write a detailed letter explaining what actions their fictional character plans to take and why.

Students learn about the geography and significance of the D-Day invasion.

GeoInquiries are designed to be fast and easy-to-use instructional resources that incorporate advanced web mapping technology. Each 15-minute activity in a collection is intended to be presented by the instructor from a single computer/projector classroom arrangement. No installation, fees, or logins are necessary to use these materials and software.

This guide is meant to completed as students view the video The Road to War. The video can be accessed at: http://macarthurmemorial.org/404/World-War-I-Resources

In this lesson, students will explore why the Russo-Japanese War is such a major turning point in Japanese and World History, through analysis of Japanese imagery and press. Students will appreciate how different visual media (woodblock prints, photographs, and motion pictures) shaped Japanese perceptions of the war.

This lesson provides an introduction for students to understand the economic and arbitrary motivations of the European powers in the colonization of Africa. Students will participate in an activity that simulates the scramble for colony claims, with the goal to procure as many resources as they possibly can for their assigned European power.

This module covering Poland's Solidarity movement up to the fall of Communism includes teaching strategies, primary sources, a lesson plan, discussion questions, and a writing prompt.

This guide is meant to completed as students view the video Stalemate. The video can be accessed at: http://macarthurmemorial.org/404/World-War-I-Resources

Here is one of the strategies that we ought to be using in history and social studies classes because it lets us take advantage of a tool that students probably already possess ... namely, the story maps they've been using in English and Language Arts and Literature for years and years. When looking at stories and novels, students are often asked to focus on the "elements" of story: setting, characters, plot, and theme, among others. When we look at historical events, we're interested in the same things: where and when did the event take place? who was involved? what was the problem or goal that set events in motion? what were the key events? how was it resolved? and, for theme, so what? what's the universal truth, the reason this matters?

This lesson is designed to acquaint students with the major differences and similarities between the main forms of European and American Government prevalent during the first half of the nineteeth century, i.e., after the major revolutions of the previous century, and to familiarize students with the philosophical rationales undergirding each form of government, particularly the theoretical and practical relationship between the individual and the state.

In this lesson, students assume the role of historians analyzing primary source material - investigating archival New York Times articles for evidence about the causes and consequences of the atrocities against Armenians. Following, there are opportunities to explore related contemporary issues, including laws prohibiting discussion or denial of historical events and current United States policy refusing to officially recognize the Armenian genocide.