As COVID-19 deaths spiked in 2020, Suzanne Firstenberg’s public art installation "In America: How could this happen…"
Constitution Day
Examine collections of the Museum's key resources on major themes in American history and social studies teaching. Additional resources can be found in the main search areas of the website.
The Smithsonian is pleased to support teachers and students for Constitution Day and beyond, with digital curricula, online exhibitions, classroom activities, teacher trainings, and more.
Becoming US
Becoming US is a new educational resource for high school teachers and students to learn immigration and migration history in a more accurate and inclusive way. The people of North America came from many cultures and spoke different languages long before the founding of the United States, even before European contact. At the center of Becoming US is the understanding that some people were already in the land that is today the United States, some people were brought against their will, some people came voluntarily, and some people never moved but became part of the United States as its border expanded to include them. Cover five units with your students: Borderlands, Education, Policy, Belonging, and Resistance.
Join the Student Sit-Ins Classroom Videos
In this series of five short videos, students can watch a museum theater presentation. During the presentation, a fictional composite character from 1960 is conducting a training session for people interested in joining a student sit-in to protest racial segregation. The student speaks about the recent protests in Greensboro, North Carolina, and coaches members of the audience in the philosophy and tactics of non-violent direct action.
Join the Student Sit-Ins Teacher Guide for the Classroom Videos
Watch and discuss a 22-minute video of a Museum theater presentation. During the presentation, a fictional composite character from 1960 is conducting a training session for people interested in joining a student sit-in to protest racial segregation. The student speaks about the recent protests in Greensboro, North Carolina, and coaches members of the audience in the philosophy and tactics of non-violent direct action.
This teacher guide also includes instructions for an in-classroom simulation, suggested extension activities, and lyrics for a sing-along performance of a freedom song.
National Youth Summit - Woman Suffrage: The Ballot and Beyond
Are the tactics used by suffragists to fight for political power still effective?
Suffrage and the passage of the 19th Amendment marked an important moment in the progression of women’s participation in our democracy and civic life. Yet it was an imperfect victory, and one that stands neither as a beginning nor an end, but as an important milestone in the fight for equality, justice and representation. The 2019 National Youth Summit looked at woman suffrage as an example of how groups with limited political power have and continue to shape our democracy using strategies and tools, like the vote and public protest, to give voice to issues and galvanize fellow Americans into communal movements for change.
Speakers included: Caty Borum Chattoo, Dolores Huerta, Naomi Wadler, and Page Harrington.
Watch the recorded event here. After, guide a discussion with your students and tackle the essential question by using the conversation kit. For additional resources, watch four short videos on Lisa Kathleen Graddy, curator of political and military history, explaining the objects suffragists used in their cause.
National Youth Summit: Abolition
In this webcast, a historian of 19th century slavery and slave literature, the Ambassador of the Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons at the US Department of State, the great-great-great grandson of Frederick Douglass, and a high school student activist joined together with high school students from around the country and the world in a moderated panel discussion to reflect upon the abolition movement of the 19th century and explore its lessons for modern-day slavery and human trafficking. The program featured excerpts from the AMERICAN EXPERIENCE documentary The Abolitionists. A conversation kit with discussion questions and lessons to prepare for the webcast is available here.
National Youth Summit: Dust Bowl
In this archived webcast related to Ken Burns’s film The Dust Bowl, thousands of high school students joined in a national dialogue regarding the Dust Bowl’s legacy on both the environment and the culture of the United States. Students discussed the importance of environmental awareness and the effects humans have on the natural world. In recognizing the Dust Bowl as an ecological disaster of primarily human origin, young people worked together to imagine ways a similar catastrophe could be avoided. Together, students across the country generated ideas for how each of us could be a responsible steward of the delicate environment in which we live. The National Museum of American History (NMAH) partnered with the National Endowment for the Humanities, WETA television, and Smithsonian Affiliations to present the National Youth Summit on the Dust Bowl.
National Youth Summit: Freedom Rides
In this webcast, students will hear from Freedom Rides veterans Congressman John Lewis, Jim Zwerg, Rev. James Lawson, and Diane Nash, and view clips from the PBS American Experience documentary Freedom Riders. The site includes a teachers guide and the webcast included questions from students at five locations across the country.
National Youth Summit: Freedom Summer
Civil rights legend Robert Moses, Marshall Ganz, activist and professor at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, students, and others participated in a panel discussion about Freedom Summer, the 1964 youth-led effort to end the political disenfranchisement and educational inequality of African Americans in the Deep South, and discuss the role of young people in shaping America’s past and future. The webcast was hosted from the Old Capitol Museum in Jackson, Mississippi. The resource includes links to lesson plans, blog post, and a conversation kit designed to spark discussion on the legacy of the civil rights movement.
National Youth Summit: Gender Equity
What will the future of gender equity look like?
The annual summit for 2021 will examine issues of gender, bias, and equity. History will be our guide as we unpack this question and envision our own answers to it.
National Youth Summit: Japanese American Incarceration in World War II
During World War II, the United States government forcibly removed over 120,000 Japanese Americans from the Pacific Coast. These individuals, two-thirds of them U.S. citizens, were sent to ten camps built throughout the western interior of the United States. Many would spend the next three years living under armed guard, behind barbed wire. In this webcast, the panelists explored this period in American history and considered how fear and prejudice can upset the delicate balance between the rights of citizens and the power of the state.
National Youth Summit: Teen Resistance to Systemic Racism
We will host a panel discussion connecting stories of teenagers in the past fighting to address systemic injustice to those of the present. The 2020 annual summit will be centered on the case study of Claudette Colvin—a 15-year-old Black student in Montgomery, Alabama, in 1955. Colvin refused to give up her seat on a segregated bus and testified in the legal case that brought an end to segregated busing in Montgomery. The summit will set aside time for students to discuss on the guiding question through facilitated conversation with their teachers, peers, and families. During this time, they will create recommendations for themselves, their peers, communities, and the nation about the power of teenagers to shape our present and future.
The Smithsonian Summer Sessions: Inspiring Civic Engagement
How can educators of all disciplines prepare students to be active and informed participants in a democracy? Join us to explore this question through the lens of six Smithsonian collections! Discover how museum objects can help learners explore the challenges and opportunities of living in a democracy and inspire civic action.
All educators are welcome. This institute is ideal for classroom teachers. This course is part of the Smithsonian Summer Sessions series.
Young People Shake Up Elections (History Proves It) Educator Guide
With and without the vote and throughout American history, young people have been a force to be reckoned with as they take action and stand in support of the issues that matter most. In 2020 this legacy will continue; 22 million young people will be eligible to vote in American elections for the first time and countless more will likely participate in the electoral process in other ways. The Young People Shake Up Elections (History Proves It) video series from the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History shares 10 stories of young people shaping and changing elections throughout American history.
This educator guide provides conversation strategies for your classroom to help your students discuss what it means to be a young person participating in elections today. For the accompanying video series, access it here.
Young People Shake Up Elections (History Proves It) video series
With and without the vote and throughout American history, young people have been a force to be reckoned with as they take action and stand in support of the issues that matter most. In 2020 this legacy will continue; 22 million young people will be eligible to vote in American elections for the first time and countless more will likely participate in the electoral process in other ways. The Young People Shake Up Elections (History Proves It) video series from the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History shares 10 stories of young people shaping and changing elections throughout American history.
Watch all of the videos here and afterwards, guide your students through a discussion of what it means to be a young person participating in elections today. Access the educator guide here.
