In this lesson, students will learn about the tobacco industry, from the tobacco farm to the tobacco warehouse and auction, and its impact on the people involved. Students will particularly focus on downtown Durham in the 1900s, whose tobacco warehouse district became a hub of the tobacco trade. Through the exploration of Main Street, Carolina’s digital history project on Preservation Durham’s Tobacco Heritage Trail (http://mainstreet.lib.unc.edu/projects/tobacco_durham/index.php/), as well as through readings, class discussion, primary source examination (photographs, music, videos, etc.), creative writing, and more, students will gain a comprehensive sense of the vibrant culture and rich history of tobacco in North Carolina. In a culminating group project, students will apply their understanding by researching, designing, and presenting a “living” exhibit for a museum on “North Carolina’s Tobacco History and Culture.”

In this lesson, students will learn about the road to the American Revolution through a living timeline activity highlighting British actions and American reactions. After understanding the origins of the Revolution, students will independently research major military engagements of the War. Finally, students will be responsible for teaching their classmates what they have learned about the American Revolution.

Students will learn about the North Carolina Fund, a series of experimental programs developed by Governor Sanford's administration to address these challenges. Students will explore the North Carolina's Fund's components and its challenges and successes within the context of segregation and the fight for civil rights.

This course was created by the Rethink Education Content Development Team. This course is aligned to the NC Standards for 8th Grade Social Studies. 

This course was created by the Rethink Education Content Development Team. This course is aligned to the NC Standards for 8th Grade Social Studies.

In this lesson, students evaluate the actions of various citizens during the Civil Rights Movement and how their actions brought about changes for society (then and now) through the examination of poetry, biographies, speeches, photographs, historical events, and civil rights philosophies.

Students will explore how various black entrepreneurs thrived in Durham's downtown, so much so that Durham's Parrish Street was soon known as Black Wall Street. Students will gain a sense of the challenges overcome and successes experienced by the various black entrepreneurs and businesses on Black Wall Street.

Resources in this collection (portraits, artifacts, photographs, and an article) chronicle The Freedom Riders who were civil rights activists in 1961 who, rode interstate buses to the segregated Southern U.S. to challenge the non-enforcement of Supreme Court decisions that ruled segregated buses unconstitutional.

This resource provides the details of the quiet act of defiance that resonated throughout the world, Rosa Parks is known and revered as the "Mother of the Civil Rights Movement." A list of teaching activities are provided for students to analyze the documents pertaing to her arrest and a document analysis worksheet is available.

Many students feel that adults don’t listen and that as teens, they have little power to affect change.  In this lesson, students will explore the successful youth movement during the Vietnam era to change the voting age from 21 to 18‐years‐old. Students will understand that largely due to the valid protests from young people (“Old enough to fight!  Old enough to vote!”) the Twenty‐Sixth Amendment was ratified.

In this activity, students will analyze a photograph as a political tool and investigate how photographs can represent people's social and political views.

This inquiry examines the emergence of the women's suffrage movement in the 19th century as an effort to expand women's political and economic rights, and it extends that investigation into the present.

Students will explore the definition of a citizen, as well as the traits ideal and negative citizens possess. They will then discuss the responsibilities of citizens in depth by participating in an acting exercise and discussing the themes illustrated in the scenes. Ideally, this activity will culminate with a volunteer event or service learning project.