Anti-Defamation League
Indian/Native American Boarding Schools: Their History, Harm and Impact
Encultureate, assimilate, or eliminate? The 2021 discovery of a mass grave of over 200 children on the site of a former Canadian Indian Boarding school led to the creation of the Federal Indian Boarding School Initiative. High schoolers...
Global Oneness Project
Cultural Heritage: Recording a Native Language Dictionary
How do you rebuild a language that has been banned for years? A short video introduces high schoolers to Marie Wilcox, A Wukchumni Native American from Central California who, for over 20 years, worked on comprising a dictionary of the...
K20 LEARN
How Did We Get Here? Native Americans in the United States
High schoolers imagine what their lives would be like if they had no access to potable water and watch a morning news show about the water situation on a Navajo reservation. Groups investigate the policies that lead to the lack of water...
DocsTeach
Before and After Carlisle School
White reformers thought they were "killing the Indian" to "save the man." Native children were taken from their parents and placed at boarding schools, such as the Carlisle School. Using a comparative photo analysis of children before...
Center for History Education
Pontiac's War
Invaders are coming: fight them off or run? Native American peoples had to decide this question after British colonists went west following the French and Indian War. Using a speech from Chief Pontiac, young historians consider if they...
Advocates for Human Rights
The Right of Indigneous Peoples in the United States
The sovereignty of U.S. Native American nations is the focus of a resource that asks class members to compare the Right to Self-Determination in the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples with a fact sheet that details the...
PBS
Myth of the West: The Battle of the Washita
Go West, young man! Scholars use PBS video clips, slide shows, and interactive materials to create a picture of Manifest Destiny in the American West. Using a variety of primary and secondary sources, young historians learn about the...
K20 LEARN
Many Trails of Tears: The Era of Indian Removal
Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Creek, and Seminole. All were forced off their ancestral lands in the southeastern United States as part of the Indian Removal Act of 1830. Young historians research the tribes' reactions to this removal and...
K20 LEARN
Manifest Destiny: U.S. Territorial Expansion
A close examination of John Gast's painting "American Progress" launches a study of the concept of Manifest Destiny used to justify United States' policy of westward expansion. Young historians read statements from persons with different...
K20 LEARN
Allotment in Indian Territory: Land Openings in Indian Territory
To understand how the allotment policy embedded in the Dawes Act, passed by the U.S. government in 1887, affected the tribal sovereignty of Native Americans, young historians examine various maps and documents and Supreme Court cases...
Bill of Rights Institute
Freedom for All?
What did abolitionists have in common with those working for women's rights? How has the Native American struggle for voting rights differed from the struggles of other groups? Class members examine the 15th, 19th, 23rd, 24th, and 26th...
Curated OER
Photography and the National Park Service
During the 1800s the United States was expanding westward; land was there for the taking. Kids explore how some early photographers used their photography to influenced the US Congress to save areas like Mirror Lake. They complete a...
Curated OER
Evaluating the "Save the Indian" Reforms
High schoolers explore the policies of the "Save the Indian" reforms. Working in groups, they review the motives, methods, and effects of the "Save the Indian" campaign of the late 19th century. Through discussion and writing, they form...
Curated OER
The Great Exchange
Sixth graders examine the connection that the present has to the past and how different cultures impact each other with lasting results. They discuss European exploration in North America and West Africa by describing cultural...
Curated OER
America's Future Culture
Seventh graders research the past and present policies in the United States regarding immigration. As a class, they read "Immigration Timeline" to examine the various groups who came to America for a better life. To end the lesson,...
Curated OER
Boarding School vs. Day School Experiences
Students compare and contrast the lives of Hopi children that attend boarding school and those that attend day school. In this schools lesson plan, students understand changes over time as they look at these schools chronologically.
Curated OER
Coming to America: U.S. Immigration
Students study immigration in the late 19th and early 20th century. In this immigration lesson plan, students participate in activities including creating maps, responding to non fiction text, memorizing and analyzing poetry, and...
Curated OER
Language Immersion
Learners listen to an audio program aired on Nation Public Radio that presents a journalists report of the Blackfeet immersion programs taking place in Browning, Montana. They take notes on the program. Students discuss how immersion...
Curated OER
A Nation in (Some) Context
Eleventh graders view selected websites to gain information about Puerto Rico and think about its relevance to Rafael Ferrer's "12 Variations on An 18th-century Map of Puerto Rico".