Teaching about Thanksgiving
Resources and activities to help you bring historical accuracy, cultural sensitivity, and a broader context to discussions about the quintessentially American holiday.
CivilWar@ Smithsonian
This site examines the Civil War through collections of artifacts. Topics include slavery and abolition, Abraham Lincoln, the first Union officer killed, soldiering, weapons, leaders, cavalries, navies, life and culture, Appomattox, Winslow Homer, and Mathematics and Statistics. A Civil War time-line is included.
Water Sourcebooks
The Water Sourcebooks contain 324 activities for grades K-12 divided into four sections: K-2, 3-5, 5-8, and 9-12. Each section is divided into five chapters: Introduction to Water, Drinking Water and Wastewater Treatment, Surface Water Resources, Ground Water Resources, and Wetlands and Coastal Waters. This environmental education program explains the water management cycle using a balanced approach showing how it affects all aspects of the environment. All activities contain hands-on investigat
Calisphere Themed Collection - California Local History Mapped: Civic Buildings
Historical images on a map of California show the development of civic buildings--missions, courthouses, city halls, and the State Capitol building--throughout the state.
Calisphere Themed Collection - 1950s-1970s: Social Reform: Everyday Life
The images in this topic provide a glimpse into the daily lives and changing lifestyles of Californians during the 1950s, 60s, and 70s, as the country moved from postwar to protest. From birthday parties and family meals to homecoming rallies and political protests, these photographs reflect how life looked during those years. Two images show Californians interacting with political figures who shaped those decades.
Calisphere Themed Collection - 1780-1880: California in Transition: Californio Society, 1830s-1880s
This is a primary source photo collection on Californios, elite families that received large land grants from Spain and Mexico, flourished during the 1830s to 1880s. The hand-drawn diseño maps underscore their vital connection to land ownership. The more formal surveyed maps that followed US acquisition of California show changing values regarding land ownership. As Californios lost land and power in the late 19th century, they tried to adapt to these changes by using social networks to maintai
Experimental Design and Testing: Hatching and Development in Brine Shrimp
This scientific investigation uses hatching and development in brine shrimp as the biological system in which to demonstrate the laboratory model of teaching experimental design.
Blooming prickly pear cactus (Opuntia) from the Sonora desert
Cacti are often overlooked as flowering plants. In fact, cacti bloom with colorful flowers and reproduce like all other angiosperms.
Birds' beaks: a special adaptation
The size and shape of a bird's beak is telling of its diet. Bird's beaks are special adaptations to get food and vary according to if the bird eats plants, animals, or seeds.
Bird nest
Most birds make homes called nests. They are built out of twigs, hair, bits of trash, mud, and many other items. Many birds build these nests in tree branches, but they can also be built on the ground or on buildings such as rooftops.
Bee on flower
Bees visit flowering plants to collect nectar so they can store it as honey back at their hives. As a bee visits one flower after another, pollen collects on its entire body and especially on the legs. Bees help pollinate flowers while they collect nectar. This is a mutualistic behavior.
Basic Needs: U.S. currency
Humans need to feel financially safe and stable.
Arm muscles
Human arm muscles are connected to the bones by things called tendons. Tendons are rope-like fibers that join muscles to bones and allow movement.
Arabidopsis gravitropism
Gravitropism is the turning or growing in a different direction of a plant in response to gravity. This plant's shoots grow upward and exhibit negative gravitropism because they are growing away from gravity's pull.
Apple Screen 1
The apple has just fallen from the tree and rests on the ground.
A 3-Dimensional Model of the Magnetosphere (WMS)
The earths magnetosphere protects the earth from high-energy charged particles coming from the sun. Some charged particles are deflected by the magnetosphere, while others become trapped and produce the aurora. This presentation shows a 3-dimensional model of the magnetosphere. The features that it highlights are flat ribbons representing the paths of charged particles deflected by the magnetosphere, triangular ribbons representing magnetic field lines, and colored surfaces representing constant
Pearl River, China (with window)
Zoom down to land reclamation from the river delta. Dissolve between data collected in 1988, 1992, and 1995.
SeaWiFS Biosphere: Pacific Ocean
Viewing the Pacific Ocean (data begins at Sept. 97 to June 99)
Progression of Hurricane Jeanne, 2004 (WMS)
Hurricane Jeanne was the fourth hurricane to hit Florida during the 2004 hurricane season. This set of images shows the progression of the hurricane as it approached Florida from the Atlantic Ocean and the Caribbean Sea. When it hit the Florida coast on September 26, Jeanne was a Category 3 storm with sustained winds near 115 miles per hour.
Selected Topics in Architecture: Architecture from 1750 to the Present, Fall 2004
General study of modern architecture as a response to important technological, cultural, environmental, aesthetic, and theoretical challenges after the European Enlightenment. Focus on the theoretical, historiographic, and design approaches to architectural problems encountered in the age of industrial and post-industrial expansion across the globe, with specific attention to the dominance of European modernism in setting the agenda for the discourse of a global modernity at large. Explores mode
