Powers of Persuasion -- Poster Art of World War II
This site provides a standards-based lesson on how the use of posters during WWII helped win over the hearts and minds of the American people.
The West
This is an online companion to the 8-part PBS documentary on the American West. The site is divided into sections dealing with an overall tour, events in the West, places, people, and archives.
Crucible of Empire: The Spanish-American War
The Spanish-American War was a complex and significant event that should be examined from all angles and perspectives. Students may be particularly interested in Spanish-American War issues that remain relevant today, namely the role of the media in the war and questions regarding foreign intervention. Educators are encouraged to use the film CRUCIBLE OF EMPIRE: THE SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR to complement their lessons in history, journalism, government, and political science classrooms.
Ancestors in the Americas
These classroom guides have been designed to help educators use the ANCESTORS IN THE AMERICAS series and companion web site in history, geography and social studies classes (grade levels 9-12). The lesson plans may also be adapted for use as stand-alone exercises.
The ANCESTORS IN THE AMERICAS companion Web site helps to round out the stories and ideas presented in this groundbreaking series. Visit the Asian American Timeline to learn about specific moments and events that shaped Asian America
Ticket to Ride - Designing a Passport for 21st Century America
In this lesson, students consider ideas, images and words that might capture the American identity, then design an American passport for the 21st century that reflects their own vision of and for America.
Suffer the Little Children - Reflecting on Child Labor in Guatemala
In this lesson, students learn about and respond to the plight of child workers in Guatemala in the face of increased free trade through the Central American Free Trade Agreement.
Van Gogh's Van Goghs
This site features nine paintings, a history, and a chronology of the life of this ingenious Dutch painter. Van Gogh was 27 years old when he decided to become an artist after unsuccessful attempts at being an art dealer, a teacher, and a clergyman. He taught himself mostly by studying the prints and reproductions he collected. The paintings he produced before his death at age 37 set the direction for many of the expressionist tendencies in 20th century art.
Gilbert Stuart: Works
Stuart portrayed virtually all the notable men and women of the Federal period in the U.S., and was declared the Father of American Portraiture by his contemporaries. Stuart portrayed American and European figures, including George Washington, John and Abigail Adams, John Jay, and Robert Liston. In 1805 he painted the Gibbs-Coolidge Set, the only surviving depiction of the first five presidents.
Frederic Remington: The Color of Night
Frederic Remington (1861–1909) has long been celebrated as one of the most gifted interpreters of the American West. Initially, his western images appeared as illustrations in popular journals. As he matured, however, Remington turned his attention away from illustration, concentrating instead on painting and sculpture. About 1900 he began a series of paintings that took as their subject the color of night. Before his premature death in 1909 at age forty-eight, Remington completed more than se
The Drawings of Annibale Carracci
This presents the first exhibition devoted solely to the powerful and evocative drawings of Annibale Carracci (1560-1609). From his early experiments with naturalism to his late, almost abstract, style, Annibale revolutionized our way of looking at the world around us and at the art of the past.
NOAA Photo Library: America's Coastlines
America has 95,000 miles of coastline. In this collection of images from NOAA, the user can view images of America's coasts and adjacent coastal regions. Images include early Nineteenth Century sketches and drawings and modern photographs of waves, rocky shores, sandy beaches, marshes, mangroves, seaside villages, and port cities.
Struggles for Social Justice
The 1960s and early 1970s were characterized by a series of protests as groups that had long felt disempowered sought to make their voices heard. California was the heart of many of these new movements. The protests put into motion by the Civil Rights movement evolved to address social justice issues affecting many groups, including students facing the draft, ordinary people protesting the war, farm workers fighting for better working conditions, Chicanos expressing a new identity, and African A
Women in the Workforce
With so many American men involved in the war abroad, there was an extreme shortage of workers at home. For the first time, women entered the workforce in large numbers, learning to do industrial jobs that previously had been done by men. The shipyard "dress code" poster for women reflects the newness of their transition into blue collar work. In the early 1940s, when the photographs in this topic were taken, women working in heavy industry were a novelty and women building warships was groundbr
The Rise of Technology
Airplanes, electric railways, and automobiles joined railways to fuel Americans' growing sense of mobility. They came to characterize the progressive spirit of the new century. As a result of these new modes of public transportation, people were able to travel faster and more easily within and between cities, changing settlement patterns. One image in this group depicts John J. Montgomery, the first American to fly a heavier-than-air machine, and his glider ?Santa Clara? in 1905. An invitation t
Life on the Home Front
As the picture of the 1942 Santa Ana High School graduating class shows, uniformed graduates were headed into the service right after graduation day some may have been volunteers and others drafted. Those who weren't eligible for service could volunteer to help the war effort at home. As the images in this topic show, people at home contributed to the war effort in a variety of ways. Many people readied for possible enemy attack. In one photograph men carry glass globes that will dim street lam
Hard Times
The US stock market crash of 1929 set off the most severe economic depression in the Western world. The so-called Great Depression lasted more than a decade, until approximately 1941. In the United States, the general atmosphere was one of desolation, as expressed in the Dorothea Lange photograph "Thirteen Million Unemployed Fill the City in the Early Thirties," which shows men leaning against a wall in San Francisco. Many photographs in this topic were taken by Lange, one of the primary chronic
Hot Technologies for Education: What's Happening Now and Later?
The Consortium for School Networking reports the emerging technologies in the areas of instruction and assessment and their characteristics. Recommendations for technology decision makers are also provided.,Volume 10, Number 1
Considering the Positives of Increased Assessment
The benefits and criticism of increased assessment or testing are discussed. Increased testing helps teachers monitoring students' learning process and their own teaching strategies and school curriculum. The main criticism is "lack of value to education in its current incarnation." Suggestions for improved assessment are recommended.,Volume 7, Number 3
Access to the Internet
Using the Internet depends, in the first instance, on access to the network. The initial emergence of "the Internet" in the early 1990s, from the increasing connectivity of a series of university and government networks alongside private services like America Online, Prodigy, and CompuServe, occurred almost entirely across slow dial-up modem connections over telephone wires. Sufficient for email, Usenet news groups, transferring relatively small files, and later viewing simple web pages, slow tr
Vocabulary Activities
FreeReading is an open source instructional program that helps educators teach early literacy. Because it is open source, it represents the collective wisdom of a wide community of teachers and researchers. FreeReading contains Vocabulary Activities. After listening to a read-aloud, students will learn new vocabulary words by distinguishing examples and non-examples of the words.
