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Unit Plan
Smithsonian Institution

National Museum of American History: Jamestown, Quebec, Santa Fe: Three North American Beginnings

For Students 9th - 10th
Explore the origins of Canada and the United States as Jamestown, Quebec, and Santa Fe celebrate their 400th anniversary.
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Handout
Geographyiq

Geography Iq: Peru

For Students 9th - 10th
Comprehensive site that gives you "Facts at a Glance" or more in-depth information about such topics as geography, people, economy, climate, or foreign relations. Have fun exploring the South American country of Peru.
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Website
University of Calgary

University of Calgary: Latin America & the Conquistadors

For Students 9th - 10th
Information about the way the Spanish conquistadors were able to conquer the indigenous people they met.
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Website
Walled Lake Consolidated Schools

Loon Lake Elementary School: Vasco Nunez De Balboa

For Students 9th - 10th
A brief biography of Spanish conquistador, Vasco Nunez de Balboa, featuring his successful voyage for Spain to the western coast of South America in the early sixteenth century.
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Website
Library of Congress

Loc: Exploring the Early Americas: Competition for Empire

For Students 9th - 10th
Part of a larger site, the primary sources here deal with the competition among the European countries in establishing a foothold in the New World.
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Website
McGraw Hill

Mc Graw Hill Higher Education: Old World, New Worlds

For Students 9th - 10th
This article from McGraw-Hill Higher Education discusses European exploration in the late 1400s and 1500s and its impact on English colonization hundreds of years later.
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Article
Khan Academy

Khan Academy: Us History: 1491 1607: Environmental/health Effects in New World

For Students 9th - 10th
European arrival in the Americas decimated both indigenous people and previously-flourishing ecosystems.
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Unit Plan
Library of Congress

Loc: Parallel Histories: Coronado

For Students 9th - 10th
A brief description of Coronado's life and adventures with links to original and related documents, including illustrations and explorer notes.
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Article
Bullock Texas State History Museum

Bullock Museum: American Indians

For Students 9th - 10th
Immerse in the campfire stories of the people who defined Texas. Find out about how the two Americas: the Europeans' version, and the American Indians' version, started changing forever.
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Website
Other

Smithsonian Institution: Musica Del Pueblo

For Students 9th - 10th
Musica del Pueblo is a full-featured resource that explores the traditions of Latino music. Using a colorful mural titled "Song of Unity" as a navigation tool, visitors can watch videos of performances, listen to different varieties of...
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Interactive
PBS

Pbs Learning Media: The Columbian Exchange

For Students 3rd - 8th
In this interactive lesson supporting literacy skills, students watch video dramatizations that tell the story of the Spanish explorers who arrived in the Americas with Columbus and introduced European, African, and Asian plants and...
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Handout
Wikimedia

Wikipedia: History of Honduras

For Students 9th - 10th
Explore the tremendous amount of information on the history of the Central American country of Honduras ranging from Pre-Columbian times to the present.
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Graphic
Digital Public Library of America

Dpla: American Empire

For Students 9th - 10th
This exhibition explores the origins, development, and eventual fall of the American empire and maps the diverse and rocky terrain of the American empire to show how it informs contemporary conversations on heritage, citizenship, racism,...
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Handout
University of Groningen

American History: Outlines: The First Europeans

For Students 9th - 10th
The first Europeans to arrive in North America -- at least the first for whom there is solid evidence -- were Norse, traveling west from Greenland, where Erik the Red had founded a settlement around the year 985. In 1001 his son Leif is...
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Graphic
Curated OER

Inscription Rock, New Mexico

For Students 9th - 10th
Two maps and four accounts of the Spanish exploration of North America that reflect the goals of the conquistadors and fascination with the land they examined-and the brutality of their treatment of native peoples.
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Unit Plan
National Humanities Center

National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: Enslaved Peoples, American Beginnings: 1492 1690

For Teachers 9th - 10th
Two Spanish accounts of enslaved Indians in the Caribbean and enslaved Africans in Mexico and statements of the difficulty of maintaining slavery and the lurking threat of a slave revolt.
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Primary
National Humanities Center

National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: Contact: First Impressions

For Teachers 9th - 10th
English, Spanish, and Portuguese maps and letters of about the voyages of Christopher Columbus, John Cabot, and Portuguese explorer, Gaspar Corte Real, which describe impressions of the lands explored.
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Primary
National Humanities Center

National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: Africans Ii, American Beginnings: 1492 1690

For Students 9th - 10th
Three illustrations and five documents about slave codes, master-slave power dynamics, and free blacks within French and Spanish settlements of the Caribbean.
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Primary
National Humanities Center

National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: Missions, American Beginnings: 1492 1690

For Students 9th - 10th
A Spanish Franciscan and a French Jesuit report on the reciprocal relationship between natives and Catholic missionaries as Europeans settled New France and New Spain.
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Unit Plan
Library of Congress

Loc: Parallel Histories: Atlantic and Gulf Coasts Settlements

For Students 9th - 10th
Insights, primary and secondary source material and timeline on early exploration and Spanish settlement of Florida and the Atlantic Coast.
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Unknown Type
Khan Academy

Khan Academy: Us History: 1491 1607: Quiz 2

For Students 9th - 10th
A quick, five question quiz over the Columbian Exchange, Spanish conquest, and the Spanish Colonial system.
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Article
Other

Brown Quarterly: Hernando De Soto Expedition

For Students 9th - 10th
An overview of the career of Spanish conquistador Hernando De Soto including a brief analysis of the effects his explorations in the southern portions of North America had on the natives of that region.
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Website
Library of Congress

Loc: Parallel Histories: Texas

For Students 9th - 10th
Spanish and English text on Spanish interest, exploration and settlement of Texas. Includes primary and secondary source material.
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Primary
National Humanities Center

National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: Conquest, American Beginnings: 1492 1690

For Teachers 9th - 10th
A series of illustrations and accounts of Spanish conquest of Indians that reflect the fascination with and the brutality directed against native cultures.