Our Democracy: A National Youth Summit civic education series Over the course of the 2022–2023 school year, we'll release classroom resources that address the driving question, "How do the stories we tell about our past shape our democracy?" Each case study uses museum objects and artifacts,

Join the National Museum of American History's for an online exploration into key social studies topics, highlighting museum resources from the Smithsonian. This series features museum educators and curators from different Smithsonian museums. Each video is about 30-60 minutes.

An Interactive Journey through Jewish History of Eastern Europe. The first exhibition, Beba Epstein: The Extraordinary Life of an Ordinary Girl uses interactive storytelling to contextualize hundreds of artifacts from the YIVO archives, taking the user on a journey of discovery. It is based on the l

This learner resource includes a 26 minute documentary where Charles Moore explains the context of many of his most famous civil rights images. Then, students examine the images and think about the importance of photojournalism to the civil rights movement. Finally, students are presented with An

The Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 1960s tackled many problems facing African-Americans at the time. This collection offers a brief video introduction into the March on Washington in 1963, which brought national attention to many of these issues, and asks students to analyze a photograph

Viral Histories is a collection of conversations with community leaders combating racism while serving on the front lines. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Asian Americans have been experiencing increased racism and hate crimes. While these incidents of increased prejudice and violence occur today,

Popular athletes can reflect the broader societal change that is going on around them; they can also be instigators of that change. This collection traces the African-American civil rights movement through the 20th century and touches on athletes like Jack Johnson, Jackie Robinson, and Muhammad A

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 imperf

In this classroom activity, students will identify the purpose and goals of education in American society and explain why African Americans chose to challenge segregated education in their quest for equality.  This lesson is part of the online exhibition entitled

In these electronic field trips produced by the National Museum of American History, viewers are given a 20 minute tour by the curators of the exhibition Separate Is Not Equal: Brown v. Board of Education, followed by a 30 minute videotaped question and answer session about the Brown v. Board of