In this lesson, students are introduced to the importance of consumerism in the 1920s and recognize the connections between commodities and culture in the American past and present.

In this activity, students watch film clips from the documentary The Life and Times of Rosie the Riveter, decode a propaganda poster, and analyze statistics about working women during World War II. Parts of this activity can be completed without the film.

In this lesson, students view archival photographs, combine their efforts to comb through a database of more than 2,000 archival newspaper accounts about race relations in the United States, and read newspaper articles written from different points of view about post-war riots in Chicago.

Late in 1917, the War Department created two all-black infantry divisions. The 93rd Infantry Division received unanimous praise for its performance in combat, fighting as part of France's 4th Army. In this lesson, students combine their research in a variety of sources, including firsthand accounts, to develop a hypothesis evaluating contradictory statements about the performance of the 92nd Infantry Division in World War I.

Containing more than 50 articles from the award-winning Tar Heel Junior Historian magazine and over 40 lesson plans, this multidisciplinary Educator Notebook will enrich your exploration of North Carolina and American history with diverse perspectives. This resource's link takes you to a very short form that gives you free downloadable access to the complete PDF book.

In this lesson, students will use use editorial cartoons dealing with the anti-Vietnam conflict movement in order to determine aspects of this protest movement. They will consider the causes, forms and effectiveness of protest as depicted in editorial cartoons.

Students will begin to learn about the changes that occured on the American homefront because of World War I by analyzing correspondence from Assistant Sec. of the Navy Franklin D. Roosevelt and Boston Red Sox owner Harry H. Frazee.

This lesson highlights the changing relationship between the city center and the suburb in the postwar decades, especially in the 1950s. Students will look at the legislation leading up to and including the Federal Highway Act of 1956. They will also examine documents about the history of Levittown, the most famous and most important of the postwar suburban planned developments.

Kick-off a research project on gender roles on the World War II home front with two brief video clips and a selection of primary sources. Once students have analyzed the photographs and wartime advertisements, begin a research project on women during World War II. This lesson plan (which includes background information and full-color primary sources) was produced to accompany the exhibition "The Price of Freedom: Americans at War," by the Smithsonian?s National Museum of American History.

With this digital collection, students will explore the subject of Chicago and the Great Migration through four specific topics: the race riots of 1919, travel, literary culture, and community organizing. Historian Arnold R. Hirsch explains in The Encyclopedia of Chicago that the covenants were “rare in Chicago before the 1920s, their widespread use followed the Great Migration of southern blacks.”

This lesson examines the civil liberties guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution and how the conditions of war might affect those liberties. Students will: review the rights and responsibilities of a citizen in a democratic system; study historical precedents for altering civil liberties during time of war; discuss and debate the pros and cons of the wartime curtailment of civil liberties; examine the role of the press in keeping citizens informed in light of the government's need to limit information during times of crisis.

This assignment will allow students to dig deeper into a theme/lens of American History 2.  This can be adapted to work with any time period or extended to last the entire semester to see change over time.  Students will incorporate research and writing, technology, and even art.  Students will research the time period through one of the following lenses: Conflict/War, Technology, Government and Policy, American Dream, American Identity.  For use with other units or time periods you could include Business and Economy.Students will create a webpage on a Google Site created by the teacher.  Students must include on their page a summary of their topic, a timeline, a student created video, and a student created visual.

This lesson plan attempts to dissolve the artificial boundary between domestic and international affairs in the postwar period to show students how we choose to discuss history.

In this activity, students study a civilian defense pamphlet and answer a series of questions. The questions are designed to guide students into a deeper analysis of the source and sharpen associated cognitive skills.

A chapter from The American Yawp open source history textbook focusing on, "The Cold War."

In this Teaching with the News lesson, students explore the human, economic, social, and political costs of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. There is an extension activity included for advanced students.

In this lesson, students will gain an understanding of the tensions that existed among world powers during the Cuban Missile Crisis. After participating in a mock air-raid, students will listen to the actual speech President Kennedy gave during the Crisis to address the Soviet threat coming from Cuba, and discuss the implications for American citizens during the period. Finally, students will compose a letter to Khrushchev from the perspective of the President, indicating how they believe a resolution could be reached.

In this lesson, students will learn historical research skills and basic facts about September 11 and its aftermath by acting as curators for a small exhibition on life after September 11.

In this lesson, students will analyze the Allied war aims, strategies and major turning points of the war by reading the prescribed text pages and participate in class discussions and by defining terms and names into notebooks. They will describe the impact of events on the people at the home front by creating cartoons summarizing events depicted in the New York Times articles and describe the role and sacrifices of members of the American armed forces by writing a letter home from the perspective of a D-Day survivor.

This activity shows how the expansion of the Japanese Empire resulted in the United States' involvement in 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.