The US has a long history of political differences and protest arising from economic inequality, racism, ethnicity, religion, & “cultural” conflict. All too often our democratic processes have failed to adequately address our challenges. Civil unrest and violence have resulted. Expressions of extremism are becoming increasingly prominent and threatening. Please use the links provided to explore these issues.

Amiens Cathedral, Robert de Luzarches, Thomas de Cormont and Renaud de Cormont, Amiens, France, begun 1220. Created by Beth Harris and Steven Zucker.

This resource provides three modules on Black history in the United States. The modules discuss three historical eras, including the "plantation to ghetto, Civil Rights Era, and The Future and the Present." Each module includes text, images, and video.

In October 2020, Amy Coney Barrett became the fifth woman confirmed to the U.S. Supreme Court.

This resource is from a collection of biographies of famous women. It is provided by the National Women's History Museum, and may include links to supplemental materials including lesson plans about the subject and related topics, links to related biographies, and "works cited" pages. The biographies are sponsored by Susan D. Whiting.

Ana Roqué de Duprey, a prolific educator, writer, and scientist, founded the first woman’s suffrage organization in Puerto Rico in 1917.

This resource is from a collection of biographies of famous women. It is provided by the National Women's History Museum, and may include links to supplemental materials including lesson plans about the subject and related topics, links to related biographies, and "works cited" pages. The biographies are sponsored by Susan D. Whiting.

An analysis of historical structures is presented themed sections based around construction materials. Structures from all periods of history are analyzed. The goal of the class is to provide an understanding of the preservation of historic structures for all students.

In this project, much of the learning responsibility is placed on the individual students within the project team, and also on the team acting as a cooperative unit.  Students will be provided with some basic background and will have some avenues to investigate and present as a team (polar vs. nonpolar compounds and surface area, hydrophilicity vs. hydrophobicity, the history of mass spectroscopy, the advantages and disadvantages of longitudinal studies, the specialization of scientific fields, and the importance of collaboration between experts in different scientific fields.

In this unit you will learn about the formal parts of an argument and how they work together. You will also learn about a common and not always honest way that people making arguments attempt to persuade their audiences, sometimes through manipulation.

This unit contains two lessons, a primary source reading, an information literacy activity, and a discussion activity.

This resource was created as part of a Developmental Reading course redesign project, with contributions from Theresa Love and David Pontious and support from an Open Oregon Educational Resources grant.

This inquiry provides students the opportunity to analyze the attitudes and beliefs of different time periods using Treaties made between the Territory of Washington and Native American tribes. Students will investigate the intentions behind the treaties of 1854-1855 to determine if the ideals were met or not.  Then they will look into how Native Americans used the treaties in 1960-70’s to establish themselves as different from Washington State citizens and as a way to remain “Indian.”  This inquiry is meant to challenge students to analyze the intentions of documents and to predict how they could be seen or used in the future. Students will need to have a solid background on native American cultures and traditions as well as an understanding of manifest destiny to accurately comprehend the results of the treaties recommendations are written below on how this might be done and focusses. The unit will come to a close when students write an argumentative essay using evidence and counterargument to address how documents can be used differently throughout time. 

Images can be a useful component in any subject.  This lesson will guide students through an analysis of an image.  Students will use critical thinksing skills to interpret an image. Students will then generate a hypothesis about the source and construct questions for further investigation. 

In this lesson students use the Informational Text Analysis Tool to deconstruct the essential elements of informational text. Informational text is more important to teachers than ever before, especially with the rise of the new Core standards. The Library of Congress is an excellent resource for finding and using texts to build students' reading skills.Through a diverse array of classic and contemporary literature as well as challenging informational and primary source texts, students build knowledge, gain insights, explore possibilities, and broaden their perspective.

This resource was created by Whittney Carnahan, in collaboration with Dawn DeTurk, Hannah Blomstedt, and Julie Albrecht, as part of ESU2's Integrating the Arts project. This project is a four year initiative focused on integrating arts into the core curriculum through teacher education, practice, and coaching.

Students apply the analytical skills that they use when reading literature to an exploration of the underlying meaning and symbolism in Hieronymous Bosch's early Renaissance painting "Death and the Miser".

These primary source excerpts are broken into 2 groups: Cuban perspectives and American perspectives of the Bay of Pigs invasion. Consider having students work in pairs or small groups to read, discussion and answer the questions for their perspective. Then have students from both perspectives share observations. Consider using a guided question such as "Why are views so different for the same event, especially of those who fought at the Bay of Pigs?"

Description: The attached unit has incorporated Media Literacy for Social Studies by scaffolding a variety of primary source document activities of varying perspectives on New Imperialism (1850-1914) which allow the studnt to identify possible bias or misinformation. The guided questions which accompany the primary sources ask the student to explain differing responses and to think critically about why those responses may be different depending on the context. 

A statistics lesson on describing and making claims from data representations, specifically linearly increasing data. Applies ideas of rate-of-change to develop writing a linear equation to fit the data, using the equation to interpolate and extrapolate additional information, and integrating the mathematical interpretation appropriately into a social sciences argument.

Anavysos Kouros, c. 530 B.C.E., marble, 6' 4" (National Archaeological Museum, Athens). Speakers: Dr. Steven Zucker & Dr. Beth Harris. Created by Beth Harris and Steven Zucker.

A conversation with Lisa Ackerman, World Monuments Fund, and Beth Harris, Smarthistory. Created by Beth Harris and Steven Zucker.

A conversation with Lisa Ackerman, World Monuments Fund, and Beth Harris, Smarthistory. Created by Beth Harris and Steven Zucker.

In the computer-based Ancient Civilizations activity, students create their own civilization and see how it fares over the years based on choices they make for location, animals, plants and materials. Students trade resources between their civilizations, repeatedly go to war with unnamed enemies, and learn some fun facts about real-world ancient civilizations along the way. This activity was inspired by Guns, Germs and Steel by Jared Diamond.