Field trips are great ways to learn about life on the water. In this activity, students will find and explore a local maritime area-a river, seashore, or another place related to the water, and share the experience with others.  The activity guide includes printable tip sheets tailored to he

What kinds of food do you eat? How do the foods you eat today compare to the types of foods that sailors ate during long voyages of the past? In this activity, students will cook one or more historical maritime recipes and then compare the foods they eat to what was served on ships in the past. I

In this classroom activity, students will analyze political cartoons and letters to the editor in order to identify and analyze the range of reactions to the Brown v. Board Supreme Court decision, and the ways in which the Court's mandates were enacted or blocked. Students will also be able to co

In this classroom activity, students will create posters that will help them identify the role of Howard University as an African American cultural center, the emergence of black lawyers as civil rights leaders, the importance of the NAACP and the roles of Charles Hamilton Houston and Thurgood Ma

In the classroom activity, students will be able to explain the difference between primary and secondary sources, and explain how the value of using primary sources is important to history. By using primary sources to answer a series of questions, they will see that, much like detectives, histori

Cartoons are great documents that can tell both funny and serious stories. In this activity, children will first read Mr. Lincoln's Whiskers. Then they will use what they have learned about Abraham Lincoln and their critical thinking skills to add a scene to the story in the form of a co

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 sc

Engage middle school students in historical document analysis with three contrasting images of the Battles of Lexington and Concord.  Using a graphic organizer, students will examine three primary sources and analyze the different perspectives presented in each. After completing the analysis

In this lesson plan, students analyze news sources from the Vietnam War era to describe how POWs and their families were represented in the media, then write letters from the perspective of the relative of a POW that describes the concerns of POW families. This resource was produced to accompany

Plant a seed and track its growth in this activity related to First Lady Claudia "Lady Bird" Johnson and her work to protect the environment and bring beauty to every community. This activity guide includes tips for investigating native species, instructions on how to start a container garden, an