Education

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Consider the impact of Hoover's boyhood years on his desire to help starving children as the administrator of the Belgian Relief Commission during World War I.

Understand the "servant" experience in early 20th-century America, as well as the pros and cons for women working in factories versus domestic service.

The goal of A Royal Journey is to spread the voice on conservation and need of this threatened species. We also strive to bring a scientist’s journey into the concept of the student’s thinking. The dynamic timeliness of necessity has inspired the Indiana Dunes National Park to invite and educate students of today and adults of tomorrow to learn and save this imperiled species.

Experience and appreciate the variety of plant communities found in the dunes. Follow the legacy of early dunes scientist, Henry Chandler Cowles, and hike from the beach over foredunes and through forests. By exploring the environment, discover the forces that shape the dunes and produce this unique succession of plants. Program availabilty: Spring - summer - fall. Age group: 5th grade and up. Location: West Beach. Length: 1.5 - 2.0 hours.

Explore the dunes and gain a personal experience of how they came to be. Observe how winds and powerful waves work to create and erode moving sand dunes. Hike the foredunes and beach to learn about the processes of dune building, glaciation, and erosion. Program availability: Spring-summer-fall. Age group: 4th grade and up. Location: West Beach. Length: 1.5 hours.

Explore the dunes and experience the forces of nature that created them. Observe water, wind and waves in action and learn how they work together to form mountains of sand. Program availability: spring, summer, fall. Age group: Preschool - 3rd grade. Location: West Beach. Length: 1.0 - 1.5 hours.

Who were the Americans that settled the United States' 19th century frontier?

The goal of A Royal Journey is to spread the voice on conservation and need of this threatened species. We also strive to bring a scientist’s journey into the concept of the student’s thinking. The dynamic timeliness of necessity has inspired the Indiana Dunes National Park to invite and educate students of today and adults of tomorrow to learn and save this imperiled species.

Experience and appreciate the variety of plant communities found in the dunes. Follow the legacy of early dunes scientist, Henry Chandler Cowles, and hike from the beach over foredunes and through forests. By exploring the environment, discover the forces that shape the dunes and produce this unique succession of plants. Program availabilty: Spring - summer - fall. Age group: 5th grade and up. Location: West Beach. Length: 1.5 - 2.0 hours.

Explore the dunes and gain a personal experience of how they came to be. Observe how winds and powerful waves work to create and erode moving sand dunes. Hike the foredunes and beach to learn about the processes of dune building, glaciation, and erosion. Program availability: Spring-summer-fall. Age group: 4th grade and up. Location: West Beach. Length: 1.5 hours.

Explore the dunes and experience the forces of nature that created them. Observe water, wind and waves in action and learn how they work together to form mountains of sand. Program availability: spring, summer, fall. Age group: Preschool - 3rd grade. Location: West Beach. Length: 1.0 - 1.5 hours.

In this lesson, students will learn about Fort Larned and its impact on people and lands around it. Students will take part in an around the room scavenger hunt as they read and answer questions.

Learn about the 1954 U.S. Supreme Court case that struck down "separate but equal".

Fort Larned was established on the Santa Fe Trail in 1859. The soldiers built crude dugouts, sod and adobe shelters, and a picket stockade fencing for the animals. Students will explore the construction and the living conditions of the fort dwellings.

Students will learn that all living things need food, water, shelter, air and space to survive. They will discover that there are special plants and animals that live in the dunes that use their external parts to get what they need to survive. Students will understand that national parks like Sleeping Bear take care of the places where plants and animals get what they need to survive.

Find out more about Sleeping Bear Dunes, the National Park Service, and what it is like to be a park ranger.

The Climate Change program will introduce your students to the ways in which climate change affects the Great Lakes and Sleeping Bear Dunes and what they can do to make positive changes in their communities.

Lodges are beaver homes and Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore is a great place for a beaver to live. Have your students make a for sale flyer for a beaver home at Sleeping Bear.

In this lesson, students will examine five examples of roadside architecture built in the 1920s and 1930s and designed to catch the eye of passing motorists—three represented literalism in advertising, one was intended as a political joke, and one was designed to lure the traveler into spending the night in an "exotic" setting.

Missouri Flag

Introductory materials to set the foundation for learning about rivers and how people have interacted with them over time. This lesson is self-contained and does not require additional material. This lesson is designed as preparation for the Settling the Mississippi unit so familiarity with later lessons may help educators steer this lesson toward uniform terms and repeatable examples throughout the unit.

Learn how three buildings restored and maintained by the U.S. General Services Administration illustrate the important role the federal government played and continues to play in communities across the country.

The Homestead Act of 1862 provided African Americans with the prospect of farm ownership. In Nebraska, Black homesteaders built successful farms from eastern tallgrass prairies to the arid Sandhills in the west and the intentional community of DeWitty, NE. Students will explore how Nebraska’s Black homesteaders persevered.

Do your students have what it takes to make it to Oregon? In this fun activity, students will pack their wagons for the journey west along the Oregon Trail through Nebraska and beyond. As they make their way west, we will look at maps to gauge progress and discuss the features that determined the route of the trail and the hardships that emigrants would have encountered.

Invite a park ranger from Scotts Bluff National Monument into your classroom for a fun, curriculum-based, social studies lesson on culture. Teams of students will look at packages of "culture clues" to determine which culture of people who have passed near Scotts Bluff they represent. In addition, students will develop a definition of what "culture" is.

One community, one room. Discover the red-brick schoolhouse where a frontier town's children learned and its families gathered.

Have students describe the life of the Hidatsa and Mandan groups in the early 19th century and explain how the villagers shaped their environment and adapted to it; and discover American Indian groups who once lived in their region and compare their cultures to the Hidatsa and Mandan peoples.

Overnight field trips provide interdisciplinary, experiential and place-based learning in Cuyahoga Valley National Park that your students will never forget! Our dynamic environmental education program is designed to complement what students learn in the classroom and correlate with Ohio academic content standards.

Visit the home of the only man to serve the country both as president and chief justice, and meet the rest of his public service-oriented family.

Discover the culture of prehistoric Native Americans who once inhabited this region. Learn about their daily life by examining artifacts, practicing your hunting skills, grinding corn and sharing Native American stories.

Explore the Canal Exploration Center to learn about the history and economic importance of the Ohio & Erie Canal. Learn about this time period as you view a historic canal lock, hike on the Towpath Trail and discover primary sources that provide narratives of life during the canal era.

Hike the Ledges and discover how geologic processes have shaped the land. Look for evidence of how erosion and deposition have changed the land, examine how weathering occurs and explore the rocks that make up the Ledges.

Assess the importance of America's early canal system and its economic and social effects.

Wild About Animals introduces students to animals that live in Cuyahoga Valley National Park. Through games, a story, and skulls and pelts students will learn about these animals and discover the adaptations that help them survive in their habitats. Learn more about the program and how to sign up.

This program explores the concept of an ecosystem by focusing on wetlands in the national park. Students will learn about the living and non-living components of wetlands, and how energy passes through local wetland food webs.

This program explores what archeologists have discovered about the prehistoric peoples of northeast Ohio. Students will learn about how these prehistoric groups met their needs, and how their cultures changed over time.

This program explores Ohio’s canal era. Students will learn about the history and economic importance of the Ohio & Erie Canal. Through primary and secondary sources, they will learn how and why the canal was used and why it eventually became obsolete.

Students will learn who George Washington was and how he contributed to the creation and foundation of the United States. Specifically, students will learn about Washington’s role in the American Revolution, and the example he set for future presidents. Additionally, while this will focus on George Washington, student will also begin to gain an understanding of different systems of government, and why America elected to be a democracy.

Students will learn what a symbol is and why symbols are used. They will learn symbols of both America and of South Dakota, as well as the significance behind these symbols.

Learn about the various preservation concerns at Mount Rushmore. By learning to recognize the various types of rocks found in Mount Rushmore and their different characteristics and varying rates of erosion, students will be able to understand the complexity of caring for a monument like Mount Rushmore.

Recreate the Mount Rushmore sculpture with accuracy in mind but using non-traditional sculpture materials. Use drawings and 3D content to get an understanding of the 3-dimensional volumes of the model for accuracy.

Students utilize resources available in the art classroom to recreate the Mount Rushmore Sculpture, or design their own version, where they choose the four figures from history they feel should be represented by the monumental sculpture. Students will present their final art piece to the classroom with a persuasive argument for their choices of the figures.

Students calculate an estimate the weight of Mount Rushmore by calculating the volume using cross sections of the model, then use density of stone to finally arrive at a rough estimate of the weight. Finally, students calculate when two cracks on the surface of the sculpture would intersect over time.

Students find simple geometric shapes in objects around them. Students will practice identifying and correctly naming geometric shapes within Mount Rushmore. Students should already be familiar with geometric shapes and their names.

Students learn that more complex shapes can be partitioned into smaller, simpler, geometric shapes. Learners will be able to understand the concept of grids and symmetry, and be able to use them to make basic or more advanced area calculations.

Students recognize shapes in Mount Rushmore, whether it’s 2D shapes through a series of 2D drawings, or 3D shapes through measurable PDF’s of the 3D model of Mount Rushmore. Learners use geometric formulas to calculate the volumes of these shapes based on scaled representations and effectively use understanding of scale to translate these calculations to life-size.

Learn about the marks that carving tools make. Students will learn about the processes of rock removal at Mount Rushmore and understand why the different tools were used at each point of the process.

The lesson could be used in units on American social history between 1865 and 1919, particularly the widespread efforts of reform. Students will better understand the role of philanthropy in U.S. history and the place of libraries in American culture.