Unit Plan
Smithsonian Institution

National Museum of American History: Jamestown, Quebec, Santa Fe: Three North American Beginnings

For Students 9th - 10th
Explore the origins of Canada and the United States as Jamestown, Quebec, and Santa Fe celebrate their 400th anniversary.
Unit Plan
Wisconsin Historical Society

American Journeys: Eyewitness Accounts Early American Exploration/settlement

For Students 9th - 10th
A collaborative project of the Wisconsin Historical Society and National History Day, this site contains over 18,000 pages of primary source, eyewitness accounts of North American exploration starting with the Vikings.
Interactive
PBS

Nova: America's Stone Age Explorers: Before Clovis

For Students 9th - 10th
A terrific map from NOVA showing pre-Clovis sites in North America. The key tells where the site is, what was found there, and when Paleoindians inhabited the site.
Handout
University of Groningen

American History: Outlines: The First Europeans

For Students 9th - 10th
The first Europeans to arrive in North America -- at least the first for whom there is solid evidence -- were Norse, traveling west from Greenland, where Erik the Red had founded a settlement around the year 985. In 1001 his son Leif is...
Website
Other

Encounters: Wild Explorer: Beaver

For Students 9th - 10th
Scroll to Beaver to learn comprehensive facts about the lives of the impressive beaver with pictures and sounds, by anthropologist, Richard Nelson.
Graphic
Other

American Journeys: Map of the Spanish Entrada Into North America [Pdf]

For Students 9th - 10th
Map showing the routes taken by fourteen Spanish explorers in the Americas between 1509 and 1543.
Primary
National Humanities Center

National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: The French, American Beginnings: 1492 1690

For Students 9th - 10th
Three maps reflecting French exploration along rivers in North America and three French explorers' accounts of the astonishing hardships they endured and the possibilities for trade with natives they opened.
Primary
National Humanities Center

National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: Indians' Accounts, American Beginnings: 1492 1690

For Teachers 9th - 10th
Four accounts by Native Americans of their complex responses to and reactions toward European explorers near present-day Canada and Mexico.
Website
Discovering Lewis & Clark

Discovering Lewis & Clark: David Thompson, Lewis, Clark, Jefferson

For Students 9th - 10th
This web site is a group effort devoted to Lewis and Clark, the explorers. This section of the site describes David Thompson's role in their expeditions.
Graphic
Curated OER

American Journeys: Eyewitness Accounts...

For Students 9th - 10th
A collaborative project of the Wisconsin Historical Society and National History Day, this site contains over 18,000 pages of primary source, eyewitness accounts of North American exploration starting with the Vikings.
Website
British Library

British Library: The Search for a Northwest Passage

For Students 9th - 10th
Historical overviews and associated images that document the search, by European explorers, for the elusive Northwest Passage through the North American continent to the Pacific. Discusses, among others, the explorations of Cabot,...
Activity
Smithsonian Institution

National Air and Space Museum: Milestones of Flight

For Students 9th - 10th
This Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum site tells the history of fight with an easy to use timeline. Also, find out about specific flights in the list of links.
Graphic
Curated OER

Wikipedia: National Historic Landmarks in Washington, d.c.: Elliott Coues House

For Students 9th - 10th
Elliott Coues, a leading 19th century ornithologist, led great expansions of the knowledge of North American bird life, helped found the American Ornithologists' Union in 1883, edited approximately 15 volumes of journals, memoirs, and...
Graphic
Curated OER

Educational Technology Clearinghouse: Clip Art Etc: Robert E. Peary

For Students 9th - 10th
An American explorer who claimed to have been the first person to reach the geographic North Pole.
Graphic
Curated OER

Educational Technology Clearinghouse: Clip Art Etc: Robert Peary

For Students 9th - 10th
An American explorer who is usually credited as the first person, on April 6, 1909, to reach the geographic North Pole.
Unit Plan
TED Talks

Ted: Ted Ed: The Dangerous Race for the South Pole

For Students 9th - 10th
After two Americans staked claim to reaching the North Pole, a Norwegian explorer and a British naval officer each set out for the last unmapped region in what newspapers called a "Race to the Pole." Elizabeth Leane sets the scene for...
Website
A&E Television

History.com: Amerigo Vespucci

For Students 5th - 8th
Amerigo Vespucci was an Italian-born merchant and explorer who took part in early voyages to the New World on behalf of Spain around the late 15th century. By that time, the Vikings had established settlements in present-day North...
Handout
Encyclopedia Britannica

Encyclopedia Britannica: Matthew Alexander Henson

For Students 9th - 10th
This entry from Encyclopedia Britannica features Matthew Alexander Henson, an American black explorer who accompanied Robert E. Peary on most of his expeditions, including that to the North Pole in 1909.
Graphic
Curated OER

Educational Technology Clearinghouse: Clip Art Etc: Robert E. Peary

For Students 9th - 10th
(1856-1920) "An American Arctic explorer, famed as the discoverer of the North Pole." -Foster, 1921