Surviving the Plains

Start a whole new life in a land known as the Wild Wild West! Learners analyze maps, personal accounts, the Kansas-Nebraska Act, songs, and video clips to uncover life under the Homestead Act. Using their new skills, class members role...

Life in the great, wide-open spaces of the West! Scholars analyze the reasons behind the vast movement to the Great Plains after the passing of the Kansas-Nebraska Act and the Homestead Act. Using photographic, document, map, video, and...

Go West, young man! Scholars investigate the impact of African American settlers moving to the Nebraska territory, following the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act in the mid 1800s. Using primary sources, timelines, maps, and...

Did Western settlers receiving free land from the Homestead Act realize it wasn't really free at all? Scholars investigate the impact Western expansion had on Native American culture in the mid-1800s. They use documents, timelines, and...

What were the virtues and values that helped form America? Pupils watch and discuss a video, read biographies of early Americans, chart the differences between early American religious movements, write journals and letters, draw, and...

Students research, design and advertise a homestead community. This is an extensive instructional activity with a variety of ativities and learning experiences.

In an age of inflamed politics, who votes, who doesn't vote, and why are the questions everyone is trying to answer. Pupils listen to scholars, journalists and data crunchers on voting statistics to make their own conclusions. A chart...

Your readers explore plot patterns in mysteries by identifying problems first in Two-Minute Mysteries by Donald J. Sobol and then in  The Westing Game by Ellen Raskin. To gain access to the worksheets, graphic organizers and...

In this social studies worksheet, students find the words that are related to the Great Plains Indians and the answers are found at the bottom of the page.

This 4-page article discusses the Homestead Act of 1862 and its effects.