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Lesson Plan
National Endowment for the Humanities

Not 'Indians,' Many Tribes: Native American Diversity

For Teachers 6th - 12th
Students explore what they thought they knew about "Indians." They examine the Hopi, Abeneki and Kwatiutl tribes in a game-like activity using archival documents.
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Lesson Plan
National Endowment for the Humanities

Native American Cultures Across the U.S.

For Teachers 6th - 8th
Students examine how American Indians are represented in today's society. They read stories, analyze maps, and complete a chart and create an illustration about a specific tribe.
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Lesson Plan
Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media

American Indians and their Environment

For Teachers 3rd - 5th
People could take a page in ingenuity and survival from the Powhatans. Deer skins became clothes, and the members of the Native American group farmed the rich Virginia soil and hunted in its forests for food. Using images of artifacts...
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Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Lesson 1: English-Indian Encounters

For Teachers 8th - 10th
What did the English settlers think of the Native Americans inhabiting the Chesapeake region of the United States? Learners analyze a series of documents and images to determine the English perception of the local inhabitants. A great...
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Lesson Plan
K20 LEARN

Surviving Assimilation: American Indian Boarding Schools

For Teachers 9th
The boarding school era is "a history that all of us need to know about," says Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland. Here's a lesson plan that examines that history. High schoolers examine video interviews of Native Americans who detail...
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Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Native Americans and Natural Resources

For Teachers 4th - 5th Standards
North American Indian civilizations had already been in place for over 10,000 years before the arrival of European settlers. Introduce your young historians to Indian tribes that lived in the Chesapeake region in the early seventeenth...
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Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Native Americans of the Chesapeake Bay: Using Primary vs. Secondary Sources

For Teachers 4th - 5th Standards
Discover the rich Native American culture that existed at the time of early European exploration into the Chesapeake region through analysis of several primary and secondary sources.
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Lesson Plan
Stanford University

Carlisle Indian Industrial School

For Teachers 9th - 12th Standards
How do policies aimed to help actually hurt? Native American boarding schools—an attempt at assimilating children of indigenous tribes into white culture—had a shattering effect on those who attended. With primary sources, including...
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Lesson Plan
Anti-Defamation League

Indian/Native American Boarding Schools: Their History, Harm and Impact

For Teachers 9th - 12th Standards
Encultureate, assimilate, or eliminate? The 2021 discovery of a mass grave of over 200 children on the site of a former Canadian Indian Boarding school led to the creation of the Federal Indian Boarding School Initiative. High schoolers...
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Lesson Plan
K20 LEARN

Native American Education - Past, Present, and Future: Assimilation

For Teachers 9th - 11th Standards
To understand the history of Native American education, high schoolers examine the record of young scholars who attended the Carlisle Indian School from 1879-1918. They also examine sources that contain information about indigenous...
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Lesson Plan
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Curated OER

Modern Interpretations

For Teachers 4th - 8th
To conclude an eight-lesson study of the events that occurred in the early colonial period in Deerfield, Massachussetss, class members evaluate the point of view and bias found in late 19th and early 20th century retellings.
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Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Pre-Columbian Cultures in the Americas

For Teachers 4th - 6th
Native American studies is fun, educational, and highly motivating. Fifth graders will gain a deeper understanding of the six major pre-Columbian culture areas on the North American continent. They will choose one group and conduct...
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Lesson Plan
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Smithsonian Institution

A Life in Beads: The Stories a Plains Dress Can Tell

For Teachers 4th - 6th Standards
Young learners discover how the Sioux and Assiniboine tribes preserved native culture through the making of traditional dresses, identifying the resources used to make the dresses and discussing behind the meaning behind some American...
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Lesson Plan
K20 LEARN

Tribal Sovereignty and the Indian Reorganization Act: Tribal Governments

For Teachers 9th - 12th
Sovereign nations or wards? High schoolers investigate the history of the Indian Reorganization Act and other legislation that impacted Native Americans. They also research different tribes' constitutions, compare them to the U.S....
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Lesson Plan
Anti-Defamation League

Analyzing Primary Source Documents to Understand U.S. Expansionism and 19th Century U.S.-Indian Relations

For Teachers 11th - 12th Standards
Historical events can be viewed from multiple perspectives. This simple truth is brought home in a lesson that examines primary source documents related to the Lewis and Clark Expedition, the Doctrine of Discovery and Manifest Destiny,...
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Lesson Plan
Alabama Department of Archives and History

Conflict in Alabama in the 1830s: Native Americans, Settlers, and Government

For Teachers 9th - 12th Standards
To better understand the Indian Removal Act of 1830, class members examine primary source documents including letters written by Alabama governors and the Cherokee chiefs. The lesson is part of a unit on the expansion of the United...
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Lesson Plan
Smithsonian Institution

We Have a Story to Tell: Native Peoples of the Chesapeake Region

For Teachers 9th - 12th Standards
How did colonial settlement and the establishment of the United States affect Native Americans in the Chesapeake region? Your young historians will analyze contemporary and historical maps, read informational texts, and work in groups to...
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Unit Plan
Annenberg Foundation

Native Voices

For Teachers 6th - 12th Standards
The Navajo people build their dwellings with the doors facing the rising sun in the east to welcome wealth and fortune. Pupils learn about the traditions of the Navajo people in the first part of a 16-part unit. They explore American...
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Lesson Plan
K20 LEARN

Many Trails of Tears: The Era of Indian Removal

For Teachers 9th - 10th
Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Creek, and Seminole. All were forced off their ancestral lands in the southeastern United States as part of the Indian Removal Act of 1830. Young historians research the tribes' reactions to this removal and...
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Lesson Plan
K20 LEARN

Allotment in Indian Territory: Land Openings in Indian Territory

For Teachers 9th
To understand how the allotment policy embedded in the Dawes Act, passed by the U.S. government in 1887,  affected the tribal sovereignty of Native Americans, young historians examine various maps and documents and Supreme Court cases...
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Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Native American Dolls

For Teachers K - 4th Standards
Students examine Native American dolls. They discover the connections between the dolls and the Native American culture and customs. They also use maps to locate the position of different tribes.
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Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Virtual Winter Count

For Teachers 1st - 5th
Learn more about the North American Plains Indian tribes and their unusual methods of recording historical events. Learners examine the winter count, a custom by which these groups illustrated information after each winter passed. They...
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Lesson Plan
North Carolina Consortium for Middle East Studies

The French and Indian War: The War That Shaped America’s Destiny

For Teachers 5th - 8th Standards
How would a Frenchman, Englishman, and Native American have each viewed the French and Indian War? Your young historians will learn about their unique perspectives and the war as a whole through a role-playing activity, engaging...
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Lesson Plan
Curated OER

Captain John Smith's Shallop

For Teachers 4th - 5th Standards
Young explorers, all aboard the shallop to discover how early European explorers would navigate the American coastline to find resources, map terrain, and trade with Native American tribes.

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