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Lesson Plan
Teaching Tolerance

Why Do We (Still) Celebrate Columbus Day?

For Teachers 6th - 8th Standards
What are we really celebrating on Columbus Day? The resource explores the narrative behind Columbus Day and ways for people to change the perception. Scholars also review vocabulary terms associated with the topic and how attitudes have...
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Activity
Teaching Tolerance

Poetry and Storytelling Café

For Teachers 3rd - 5th
Academics take turns as actors in an engaging poetry cafe. Elementary learners work in small groups to create original poems or stories addressing community issues and read their work in front of a live audience. Scholars also reflect...
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Activity
Teaching Tolerance

Truth to Power: Writing Letters for Change

For Teachers 6th - 12th
Can letter writing really create social change? Pupils create and mail formal letters addressing a specific organization to promote social change they wish to see. Class members reflect on the process and responses they received in small...
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Lesson Plan
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Just Health Action

What Makes a Community Healthy?

For Teachers 6th - 12th
Young people have an opportunity to make it a beautiful day in their neighborhoods with an activity that asks them to identify what is healthy and unhealthy in their community and develop some ideas about what they can do to fix the...
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Lesson Plan
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Just Health Action

Whose Backyard? Toxic Waste Management Meeting and Environmental Injustice

For Teachers 6th - 12th
Toxic waste is a global problem. What to do with environmental hazards and where to put toxic waste is a global concern. To better understand current issues around toxic waste management and how current practices can lead to...
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Lesson Plan
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Just Health Action

Equity Impact Review: Green Stormwater Infrastructure in Seattle

For Teachers 6th - 12th
Using an Equity Impact Review (EIR) tool, developed by Washington state's King County to "identify, evaluate, and communicate issues of equity when making a decision," class members design a GSI program for two Seattle neighborhoods.
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Lesson Plan
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Just Health Action

How are Equality and Equity Different?

For Teachers 6th - 12th
Equality does not equal equity. That's the take-away from a lesson that asks young people to consider what could be done to make a variety of situations more just, more equitable. After examining images that illustrate the difference...
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Lesson Plan
Teaching for Change

Selma in Pictures: Socratic Seminar

For Teachers 9th - 12th
Photographs from the freedom movement in Selma, Alabama serve as the basis of two Socratic Seminars. Class members prepare for the seminars by closely observing the images, form a hypothesis, and use evidence from photo to support a...
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Lesson Plan
Teaching for Change

Stepping into Selma

For Teachers 6th - 12th
The 1964 Selma to Montgomery, Alabama voting rights marches are the focus of a instructional activity designed to introduce learners to people who took part in the Civil Rights Movement. Class members set into the role of one of the...
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Lesson Plan
National Endowment for the Humanities

A Day for the Constitution

For Teachers 6th - 12th
The "Constitution Day and Citizenship Day" law requires schools receiving any federal funding to provide educational programming on the history of the American Constitution. The lesson plans, materials, videos, questions, and activities...
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Lesson Plan
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Facing History and Ourselves

Defining Democracy

For Teachers 9th - 12th Standards
For democracies, it is both the best and the worst of times. As part of a study of the challenges facing democracies, young political scientists seek first to define democracy, and then to consider the relationship between democracy and...
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Lesson Plan
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Teaching Tolerance

Jim Crow as a Form of Racialized Social Control

For Teachers 9th - 12th
Just because slavery was illegal doesn't mean it went away ... Jim Crow Laws took its place. An eye-opening lesson focuses on how Jim Crow Laws were used as a form of racial social control against African Americans in the United States....
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Lesson Plan
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Teaching Tolerance

Modern-Day Heroes: People Who Are Making a Difference

For Teachers 3rd - 8th Standards
Not all superheroes wear capes. An engaging lesson delves into the world of modern-day heroes and activists for change. Academics learn there are many different ways to be a hero as well as explore what makes a person a hero. The...
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Lesson Plan
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Learning for Justice

Change Agents in Our Own Lives

For Teachers 3rd - 8th Standards
Everyone has the power to change their own lives. Young historians learn how they can become agents for change in their own lives and the community. The lesson focuses on positive role models and what motivates individuals to promote...
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Lesson Plan
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Teaching Tolerance

In Our Own Words: A Story Book with a Purpose

For Teachers 3rd - 8th Standards
Academics turn into storytellers in an engaging activity on activism. The activity focuses on promoting social change in local communities with stories. Young historians plan a storybook to target a specific audience and social issue and...
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Lesson Plan
National Endowment for the Humanities

Oyez! Oyez! Oyez!: Simulating the Supreme Court

For Teachers 9th - 12th Standards
Students have freedom of speech—or do they? Using an actual court case and research materials on the Supreme Court, young legal scholars examine the Supreme Court's role and history. Then, they argue a case the court declined to hear and...
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Lesson Plan
C-SPAN

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s Letter from Birmingham Jail

For Teachers 6th - 12th Standards
Timing is everything. Introduce young historians to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s "Letter from Birmingham Jail" with a resource that underscores the significance of the timing of the Good Friday Birmingham march, King's subsequent...
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Activity
PBS

Presidential Leadership and the Goal to Unify | America’s Great Divide: From Obama to Trump

For Students 9th - 12th Standards
Traditionally, a United States President's Inaugural Address establishes the tone and vision for his presidency. It has stressed the goal to unify the country and bring the political parties together after what are often divisive...
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Lesson Plan
C-SPAN

Last Days of Martin Luther King, Jr.

For Teachers 6th - 12th
On April 4, 1968, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee. Four video clips reveal the events of that time, including the shift in the focus of the Civil Rights Movement, the aftermath of the assassination, and...
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Lesson Plan
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US House of Representatives

A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words

For Teachers 7th - 12th
Groups select a photograph from one of the four eras of African Americans in Congress and develop a five-minute presentation that provides background information about the image as well as its historical significance. The class compares...
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Activity
Digital Public Library of America

The Watsons Go To Birmingham—1963 by Christopher Paul Curtis

For Teachers 9th - 12th Standards
A primary source set of photographs, videos, newspaper articles, and FBI reports provides insight into race relations during the 1960s, the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church bombing, and the murder of Emmitt Till. Designed to be used to...
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Activity
Digital Public Library of America

Beloved by Toni Morrison

For Teachers 9th - 12th Standards
Any classroom study of Toni Morrison's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel Beloved requires careful planning and scaffolding. A primary source set that includes a video, illustrations, photos of artifacts, and a broadside of the Fugitive...
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Lesson Plan
Facing History and Ourselves

After Charlottesville: Contested History and the Fight against Bigotry

For Teachers 9th - 12th
History doesn't always reflect all sides. Academics discover how the remembered history of the Civil War differs for White and African Americans. The instructional activity explores how Civil War monuments and celebrations have racist...
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Activity
Academy of American Poets

Teach This Poem: "Black Laws" by Roger Reeves

For Teachers 6th - 12th
After investigating the Black Lives Matter movement, class members do a close read of Roger Reeves' "Black Laws." They write down words and phrases that rhyme, consider the kinds of rhymes used and their function in the poem. Scholars...

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