20th Century Sports Lesson Plans

Students explore the history of immigration through photographs. For this visual arts and United States immigration history lesson, students view and discuss photographs depicting the culture and lifestyle of late 19th and early 20th century immigrants. Students take pictures of current examples of culture in their neighborhood, create a photograph timeline, and draw conclusions about  lifestyles based on the photographs.

Students role-play the role of journalists during the 19th and 20th centuries. They create their own sports newspapers. They report on Jack Johnson's life and career.

Students discuss a rugby match to understand its world implications. In this rugby lesson, students read and analyze primary documents to find how sports effect world relations.  Students answer critical thinking questions related to the document.

Students investigate what genocide is as well as places that it is found in the 20th century. They trace the history of genocide back to the events that occurred in Sudan's history. Brainstorming ways to prevent the ongoing conflicts and injustices of genocide in the world as well as the United States is covered within this lesson in depth.

Students study several different types of Chinese sports played throughout history in China. They examine the historical perspective of the importance of sports in Chinese culture and create a final project using information about three types of Chinese sports of their choice in the format of a sports mobile.

Students take a closer look at the events and people who made news at the end of the 19th century and beginning of the 20th century. In this research skill lesson, students use the provided rubric to select the events and people they must research to create newspapers for the historical era.

Fifth graders complete a unit of lessons on the historical events of the 20th century. They read and discuss text, complete graphic organizers, participate in jigsaw activities, conduct Internet research, and create a computer slide presentation.

Seventh graders explore the railroad revolution. They discuss the different modes of transportation in the late 19th and early 20th centuries after reading newspaper extracts from this time period and locating information in A Living Archives website. Additionally, they categorize some of the effects and changes that the railway made for people on Prince Edward Island and Canada.

Students explore the way female involvement in sports has changed over the last fifty years. They view and discuss a video on the history of women in sports then each student finds a women in a particular age group to interview about their perceptions of the role of sorts for women.

Young readers explore philanthropy and its effects on the public good. They discuss athletes and their examples as philanthropists. They research a sports hero and play "The Match Game" to determine what they know about other sports heroes. They discuss National Philanthropy Day and ways to celebrate it. Extend this lesson into a research paper, in which middle schoolers can work on using textual evidence to support their arguments.