TCI’s in-depth, online social studies curriculum for high school students is robust, engaging, and results-focused. Students complete collaborative projects, writing assignments, critical thinking challenges, and problem-solving groupwork. TCI’s high school programs give students a unique advantage as they prepare for college and beyond.
Geography Alive! Regions and People
Geography Alive! Regions and People actively connects students to geography from around the world using a case study approach. Students take a closer look at specific regions around the world, and learn concepts by exploring the data in a hands-on format. Each lesson ends with a Global Connection section, where students can take the concepts they’ve learned and apply them to a global setting.
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Unit 1: The Geographer’s World
1. The Tools of Geography
Essential Question: How do geographers show information on maps?
In a Social Studies Skill Builder, students develop map-reading skills such as the difference between absolute and relative location and measuring distance using scale.
2. A Spatial Way of Thinking
Essential Question: Why do geographers use a variety of maps to represent the world?
In a Visual Discovery activity, students learn to read and analyze six types of thematic maps that geographers use to represent the world.
Unit 2: Canada and the United States
3. Settlement Patterns and Ways of Life in Canada
Essential Question: How does where you live influence how you live?
In a Social Studies Skill Builder, students explore how location influences ways of life by looking at population, climate, language, buildings, and economic activity in the five regions of Canada.
4. The Great Lakes: The U.S. and Canada’s Freshwater Treasures
Essential Question: How can people best use and protect Earth’s freshwater ecosystems?
Students analyze data about the state of the Great Lakes today and apply what they learn about the lakes’ current status and future prospects in a Writing for Understanding activity.
5. Urban Sprawl in North America: Where Will It End?
Essential Question: How does urban sprawl affect people and the planet?
In an Experiential Exercise, students work in policy-planning groups to debate and recommend possible policies for how to best address growth and urban sprawl in the cities of Portland, Toronto, and Atlanta.
6. National Parks: Saving the Natural Heritage of the U.S. and Canada
Essential Question: What features make national parks special and worth preserving?
In a Response Group activity, students plan adventure tours to learn about the topography and characteristics of North American national parks as well as challenges to their preservation.
7. Consumption Patterns in the United States: The Impact of Living Well
Essential Question: How do American consumption patterns affect people and the planet?
In a Response Group activity, students analyze a series of cartograms depicting global consumption patterns and gross domestic product and identify reasons for those patterns.
8. Migration to the United States: The Impact on People and Place
Essential Question: How does migration affect the lives of people and the character of places?
In an Experiential Exercise, students conduct interviews to learn about the push and pull factors that cause people to migrate to the United States.
Unit 3: Latin America
9. Spatial Inequality in Mexico City: From Shacks to Skyscrapers
Essential Question: Why does spatial inequality exist in urban areas?
In a Writing for Understanding activity, students assume the role of exchange students and “travel” to four neighborhoods to survey people from four social classes about their experiences living in Mexico City.
10. Indigenous Cultures: The Survival of the Maya of Mesoamerica
Essential Question: How do indigenous peoples preserve their traditional culture while adapting to modern life?
In a Problem Solving Groupwork activity, students create and perform dramatizations about five aspects of life in a highland Maya village to learn how they have preserved their traditional ways of life while adapting to modern society.
11. Dealing with Extreme Weather: Hurricanes in the Caribbean
Essential Question: What causes extreme weather, and how do people deal with it?
In a Visual Discovery activity, students analyze images that represent key stages in the life of a hurricane to learn about extreme weather and how people plan for and deal with hurricanes in the Caribbean.
12. Land Use Conflict in the Amazon Rainforest
Essential Question: How should the resources of rainforests be used and preserved?
In a Response Group activity, students create and present news reports about groups with competing interests in how to preserve and use the resources of the Amazon rainforest.
13. Life in the Central Andes: Adapting to a Mountainous Region
Essential Question: How do people adapt to living in a mountainous region?
In a Social Studies Skill Builder, students assume the role of magazine editors organizing a feature article on life in the central Andes to learn how people have adapted to living in the varied environments of the Andes Mountains.
Unit 4: Europe and Russia
14. Supranational Cooperation in the European Union
Essential Question: What forces work for and against supranational cooperation among nations?
In an Experiential Exercise, students “travel” in Europe to explore the economic, political, and cultural forces that work for and against supranational cooperation in the EU.
15. Population Dilemmas in Europe
Essential Question: How do population trends affect a country’s future?
In a Response Group activity, students explore the effects of population trends by creating and analyzing population pyramids for three countries with different levels of growth.
16. Invisible Borders: Transboundary Pollution in Europe
Essential Question: How can one country’s pollution become another country’s problem?
In a Visual Discovery activity, students analyze images and maps to understand the causes and results of radioactive pollution from Chernobyl, acid rain from the “Black Triangle” region, and water pollution in the Tisza and Danube rivers.
17. Russia’s Varied Landscape: Physical Processes at Work
Essential Question: How do physical processes shape Earth’s landscape?
In a Social Studies Skill Builder, students learn about four major physical processes then use their knowledge to try to identify which physical processes are pictured in various images.
18. Nation-States from the Old Soviet Empire: How Have They Succeeded?
Essential Question: What factors contribute to the success or failure of new nation-states?
In a Writing for Understanding activity, students gather information from maps, charts, and their reading to determine which of the nation-states formed after the breakup of the Soviet Union are most likely to be politically and economically successful.
Unit 5: Africa
19. The Nile River: A Journey from Source to Mouth
Essential Question: How do rivers change as they flow across Earth’s surface?
In a Social Studies Skill Builder, students examine photographs of important features along the Nile River that show how the river changes in its journey from source to mouth.
20. Life in the Sahara and the Sahel: Adapting to a Desert Region
Essential Question: How do people adapt to living in a desert region?
In a Response Group activity, students investigate three environments of the Saharan region and make predictions about how people have adapted to life in each.
21. Micro-entrepreneurs: Women’s Role in the Development of Africa
Essential Question: How are women micro-entrepreneurs in developing countries changing their communities?
In a Writing for Understanding activity, students study three women micro-entrepreneurs to learn how they are changing the human characteristics of their African communities.
22. Nigeria: A Country of Many Cultures
Essential Question: How can dividing a diverse country into regions make it easier to understand?
In a Social Studies Skill Builder, students explore the regional differences within Nigeria by designing an educational Web page about the country’s three distinct regions.
23. Resources and Power in Post-apartheid South Africa
Essential Question: How might ethnic group differences affect who controls resources and power in a society?
In a Visual Discovery activity, students examine photographs of the new South Africa and evaluate how much progress South Africa has made toward achieving racial equality since the end of apartheid.
Unit 6: Southwest and Central Asia
24. Oil in Southwest Asia: How “Black Gold” Has Shaped a Region
Essential Question: How might having a valuable natural resource affect a region?
In a Response Group activity, students analyze geographic data to answer a series of critical thinking questions about how oil has affected ten countries in Southwest Asia.
25. Istanbul: A Primate City Throughout History
Essential Question: Where are primate cities located, and why are they important?
In an Experiential Exercise, students play a game in which they discover the best trading location among several designated areas in the room and then compare and contrast their experience with aspects of Istanbul.
26. The Aral Sea: Central Asia’s Shrinking Water Source
Essential Question: How are humans affected by changes they make to their physical environment?
In a Problem Solving Groupwork activity, students prepare and present “documentaries” on how a particular group of people has been affected by the changes to the Aral Sea.
Unit 7: Monsoon Asia
27. Waiting for the Rains: The Effects of Monsoons in South Asia
Essential Question: How does climate influence human activity in a region?
In a Social Studies Skill Builder, students work in pairs to complete puzzles by correctly matching a climagraph, a climate map, a photograph, and a list of effects of and adaptations to that climate for four cities in South Asia.
28. Tech Workers and Time Zones: India’s Comparative Advantage
Essential Question: What factors give some countries a comparative advantage in the global IT revolution?
In a Writing for Understanding activity, students participate in simulated Internet searches and online meetings with three people from Bangalore, India and then write a feature article about the impact of the IT revolution on India.
29. Mount Everest: Climbing the World’s Tallest Physical Feature
Essential Question: How can people both experience and protect the world’s special places?
In an Experiential Exercise, teams of students assume the role of climbers on Mount Everest, discovering some of the challenges presented by this physical feature as they “ascend” the mountain.
30. China: The World’s Most Populous Country
Essential Question: How does a country meet the challenges created by a large and growing population?
In a Response Group activity, students assume the roles of demographers attending a conference on population as they learn about and analyze three plans to meet the challenges presented by China’s growing population.
31. Population Density in Japan: Life in a Crowded Country
Essential Question: How does a country meet the challenges created by a large and growing population?
In an Experiential Exercise, students use their bodies and varying amounts of floor space to simulate the population densities of Australia, the United States, and Japan.
32. The Global Sneaker: From Asia to Everywhere
Essential Question: What is globalization, and how does it affect people and places?
In a Visual Discovery activity, students analyze images that represent key stages in the production of a sneaker: designing, location materials, manufacturing, and distributing.
Unit 8: Oceania and Antarctica
33. Relative and Absolute Location: What Makes Australia Unique?
Essential Question: How does a country’s location shape life within its borders?
In a Social Studies Skill Builder, students learn how six aspects of life in Australia have been affected by its absolute or relative location.
34. The Pacific Islands: Adapting to Life Surrounded by Ocean
Essential Question: How do people adapt to life in an island region?
In a Problem Solving Groupwork activity, students create illustrated maps of one of three island types: continental islands, volcanic islands, and atolls.
35. Antarctica: Researching Climate Change at the Coldest Place on Earth
Essential Question: How might global warming affect the environment in the world’s coldest places?
In a Writing for Understanding activity, students explore how Antarctica is affected by world climate changes and why this unique land is ideal for the study of global warming.
Mapping Labs
In a series of Mapping Labs, students work in pairs to complete a series of geography challenges that spiral in difficulty. They learn about the region’s physical and human geography and discover and implement the steps in the geographic inquiry process (GIP). Included in the Mapping Labs are:
- Canada and the United States
- Latin America
- Europe and Russia
- Africa
- Southwest and Central Asia
- Monsoon Asia
- Oceania and Antarctica
History Alive! World Connections
History Alive! World Connections takes a global approach to the study of world history by exploring the inter-regional connections and global themes that connect our world today. Just as a filmmaker uses multiple lenses to tell a story, this program invites students to begin with a wide-angle view to examine eras in world history and then zoom in to understand the development of events and interactions among the world’s people and cultures today.
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1. Themes of World History
Essential Question: How can a thematic approach help us make sense of world history?
In a Response Group activity, students analyze primary and secondary sources found on a historian’s desk.
2. Era Overview: Foundations of World History, Prehistory-300 C.E.
Essential Question: How did humans progress from bands of hunter-gatherers to the great civilizations of the ancient world?
In a Social Studies Skill Builder, students use primary and secondary sources to answer basic questions about historical facts and higher-order questions requiring them to use their critical thinking skills.
3. World Religions
Essential Question: How have religions influenced human society?
In a Response Group activity, students learn about the development, key beliefs, and influence of six major world religions–Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, and Confucianism.
4. Era Overview: Expanding Interactions, 300-1500 C.E.
Essential Question: Why did the first empires decline, and how did new empires rise to take their place?
In a Social Studies Skill Builder, students use primary and secondary sources to answer basic questions about historical facts and higher-order questions requiring them to use their critical thinking skills.
5. The Decline of Feudalism
Essential Question: How did events in Europe contribute to the decline of feudalism and the rise of democratic thought?
In a Visual Discovery activity, students analyze key events in Europe between the 12th and 15th centuries to understand factors that contributed to the decline of feudalism and the rise of democratic thought.
6. The Byzantine Empire
Essential Question: How did the Byzantine Empire develop and form its own distinctive church?
In a Visual Discovery activity, students act out images that represent Constantinople, Justinian’s rule, the development of the Eastern Orthodox Church, and the schism between Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Christians in 1054.
7. The Political Development of Imperial China
Essential Question: Which method of selecting officials led to the best leaders for China?
In an Experiential Exercise, students assume the roles of figures from medieval China as they debate the advantages and disadvantages of three methods used by rulers to select officials.
8. Ghana: A West African Trading Empire
Essential Question: To what extent did trans-Saharan trade lead to Ghana’s wealth and success?
In an Experiential Exercise, students role-play trans-Saharan trade in gold and salt, using the silent-barter system to explore how it helped to make Ghana a powerful empire.
9. Achievements of the Mayas, Aztecs, and Incas
Essential Question: What were the significant achievements of the Mayas, Aztecs, and Incas?
In a Social Studies Skill Builder, students learn about important achievements of the Mayas, Aztecs, and Incas by identifying and categorizing a series of artifacts representing achievements of the three civilizations, which they “discover” in a fictitious museum.
10. Era Overview: The First Global Age, 1400-1799
Essential Question: What changed the world more between 1400 and 1800 — trade, travel, weaponry, or ideas?
In a Social Studies Skill Builder, students use primary and secondary sources to answer basic questions about historical facts and higher-order questions requiring them to use their critical thinking skills.
11. Expanding Empires Outside Europe
Essential Question: What made empires outside Europe rise and decline?
In a Writing for Understanding activity, students analyze how military, cultural, political, economic, and social factors led to the rise and decline of five empires outside Europe.
12. Transformations in Europe
Essential Question: What ideas transformed Europe in the early modern era?
In a Problem Solving Groupwork activity, students take on the role of various European thinkers from the Renaissance, Reformation, Scientific Revolution, and Enlightenment and debate which of the thinkers most transformed Europe and which most impacts the world today.
13. Toward a Global Economy
Essential Question: What factors led to European dominance in the emergence of the first global age?
In a Response Group activity, students visit a wing of a European museum devoted to the emergence of the first global age and then win points by showing how and why artifacts led to Europe’s dominance in the first global age.
14. Era Overview: An Age of Global Revolutions, 1700s-1914
Essential Question: What forces drove the revolutions of the 1700s, 1800s, and early 1900s?
In a Social Studies Skill Builder, students use primary and secondary sources to answer basic questions about historical facts and higher-order questions requiring them to use their critical thinking skills.
15. Political Revolutions and Their Legacies
Essential Question: How were political revolutions during the 1700s and 1800s similar and different?
In a Problem Solving Groupwork activity, students assume the roles key nationalist leaders and revolutionaries during the Age of Revolutions. Then, they convene a “Revolutionary Council” to discuss the key grievances, goals, and outcomes of their revolutions.
16. The Industrial Revolution
Essential Question: What was so revolutionary about the Industrial Revolution?
In a Writing for Understanding activity, students take on the role of art critics writing for newspapers with a pro or anti-industrialization bias as they examine and evaluate artwork from this time period.
17. Imperialism throughout the World
Essential Question: How did a few nations come to control so much of the globe?
Students participate in a lively competition simulating the “scramble for Africa.” Then, in a Visual Discovery activity, students examine photographs of 19th and 20th century imperialism and create “living photographs” to represent the causes and effects of this new imperialism.
18. Era Overview: Global Crisis and Achievement, 1900-1945
Essential Question: How did the global balance of power change between 1900 and 1945, and why?
In a Social Studies Skill Builder, students use primary and secondary sources to answer basic questions about historical facts and higher-order questions requiring them to use their critical thinking skills.
19. World War I
Essential Question: Why did the Great War last so long and bring about so much change?
In an Experiential Exercise, students undergo life in the trenches during World War I. Using primary sources, they gain a vivid understanding of conditions that soldiers on both sides of the conflict endured.
20. The Russian Revolution
Essential Question: What changes did the Russian Revolution bring about within Russia and in world affairs?
In a Visual Discovery activity, students work in groups to analyze eight powerful images relating to the Russian Revolution. They become “experts” on one image and create questions to help the class discover what the image reveals about the Russian Revolution.
21. Foreign Influences and Revolutions in the Americas
Essential Question: What changes did the Russian Revolution bring about within Russia and in world affairs?
In a Visual Discovery activity, students work in groups to analyze eight powerful images relating to the Russian Revolution. They become “experts” on one image and create questions to help the class discover what the image reveals about the Russian Revolution. Response Group
22. North Africa and the Middle East
Essential Question: How did European colonialism lay the groundwork for the emergence of the modern Middle East?
Visual Discovery
23. The Rise of Fascism and Totalitarian States
Essential Question: What accounted for the rise of totalitarian states after World War I?
In a Writing for Understanding activity, students assume the roles of an American journalists attending a fictitious “International Fascist Art Exhibition” in 1939. They analyze propaganda posters and acquire “secret” information from their classmates to learn about fascist and totalitarian states in the interwar period.
24. World War II
Essential Question: Why was there another global conflict so soon after World War I?
In this Problem Solving Groupwork activity, students play the role of creative teams charged with the task of producing an illustrated timeline of the major events of World War II for the walls of the United Nations.
25. Forces for Independence and Revolution in Asia
Essential Question: Essential Question: How did popular movements transform India and China after World War II?
Response Group
26. Era Overview: The Cold War and Beyond, 1945-Present
Essential Question: How did the Cold War change the world?
In a Social Studies Skill Builder, students use primary and secondary sources to answer basic questions about historical facts and higher-order questions requiring them to use their critical thinking skills.
27. The Cold War and the Third World
Essential Question: How did the Cold War affect Third World nations?
In this Problem Solving Groupwork activity, students create multimedia presentations using images and videos to present the long-lasting effects of imperialism and the Cold War on eight nations: Guatemala, Chile, Cuba, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Nigeria, and South Africa.
28. Movements Toward Independence and Democracy
Essential Question: How have emerging nations fared in their quest for political stability, economic growth, and democracy?
Social Studies Skill Builder
29. Shifts of Power in the Middle East
Essential Question: Why is the Middle East a flashpoint in world affairs?
Writing for Understanding
30. Contemporary Global Issues
Essential Question: What are key challenges facing the world in the 21st century?
History Alive! Pursuing American Ideals
History Alive! Pursuing American Ideals has students learning US History through the lens of the founding ideals – liberty, democracy, rights, equality and opportunity – that can be found in the Declaration of Independence. Students will be debating and discussing history in a way that asks them to go beyond just a chronological timeline of US History. By the end of the program they will be able to deeper about the connections between what has happened and today.
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Establishing an American Republic 1492 – 1896
1. What Is History?
Essential Question: What is history, and why should we study it?
In an Experiential Exercise, students witness a staged event that they then reconstruct to help them understand the challenges historians face in interpreting and communicating information about the past.
2. Defining and Debating America’s Founding Ideals
Essential Question: What are America’s founding ideals, and why are they important?
In a Writing for Understanding activity, students examine placards that contain images and quotations spanning American history to discover the influence of the five founding ideals of the Declaration of Independence.
3. Setting the Geographic Stage
Essential Question: How has geography influenced the development of the United States?
In a Social Studies Skill Builder, students label features on thematic maps to determine how geography has shaped U.S. history.
4. The Colonial Roots of America’s Founding Ideals
Essential Question: How did the colonial period help to shape America’s five founding ideals?
In a Response Group activity, students explore three provocative questions during a discussion about the effects of the colonial period on American’s five founding ideals.
5. Americans Revolt
Essential Question: Were the American colonists justified in rebelling against British rule?
In an Experiential Exercise, students use primary sources and assume the perspectives of four groups affected by colonial rebellion—King George III and Parliament, Patriots, Moderates, and Loyalists—to debate the independence movement.
6. Creating the Constitution
Essential Question: What is the proper role of a national government?
In a Visual Discovery activity, students analyze images of a polling place after the revolution, Shays’ Rebellion, and the signing of the Constitution in 1787. They bring to life the signing ceremony and read how the Constitution was ratified.
7. An Enduring Plan of Government
Essential Question: Does the Constitution support the ideals in the Declaration of Independence?
Students work in pairs in a Social Studies Skill Builder and participate in a game in which they analyze the Constitution to learn about its key features.
8. Changes in a Young Nation
Essential Question: Did changes in the young nation open the door to opportunity for all Americans?
In a Response Group activity, students discuss how changes in the early 19thcentury opened or closed the door to opportunity for groups of Americans.
9. A Dividing Nation
Essential Question: Was the Civil War inevitable?
In a Social Studies Skill Builder, students analyze a selection of primary source documents related to events from 1850 to 1861 and decide whether those sources show a spirit of compromise or of conflict.
10. The Civil War
Essential Question: How did the Civil War affect the United States and its people?
In a Problem Solving Groupwork activity, students create interactive dramatizations to show how the Civil War affected Americans on both sides of the conflict.
11. Reconstruction
Essential Question: How was the nation’s commitment to its founding ideals tested during Reconstruction?
In a Visual Discovery activity, students interpret four political cartoons to understand the issues and events of the Reconstruction period.
Industrialism and Reform 1840 – 1920
12. Change and Conflict in the American West
Essential Question: What opportunities and conflicts emerged as Americans moved westward?
Students work in pairs in a Social Studies Skill Builder to analyze primary sources that illustrate how the opening of the West affected various group of people and determine the positive and negative effects it had on each group.
13. The Age of Innovation and Industry
Essential Question: Was the rise of industry good for the United States?
In a Social Studies Skill Builder, students graph data and analyze images about industrialism.
14. Labor’s Response to Industrialism
Essential Question: Was the rise of industry good for American workers?
In an Experiential Exercise, students play a game that simulates the choices involved in the decision to form or join a labor union and then compare their experience to history.
15. Through Ellis Island and Angel Island: The Immigrant Experience
Essential Question: What was it like to be an immigrant to the United States?
In an Experiential Exercise, students discover what it might have been like to be a European immigrant passing through Ellis Island at the turn of the century.
16. Uncovering Problems at the Turn of the Century
Essential Question: What social, political, and environmental problems did Americans face at the turn of the 20th century?
In a Writing for Understanding activity, students act as muckrakers to conduct field investigations using primary sources and write newspaper reports exposing problems in American society in the early 20th century.
17. The Progressives Respond
Essential Question: Who were the Progressives, and how did they address the problems they saw?
In a Visual Discovery activity, students examine historical images to evaluate the actions taken by progressives to address problems of the early 1900s.
18. Progressivism on the National Stage
Essential Question: How well did presidents Roosevelt, Taft, and Wilson promote progressive goals in national policies?
In a Response Group activity, students take on the roles of Roosevelt, Taft, and Wilson to debate who deserves the most credit for promoting progressive goals.
Expanding American Global Influence 1796 – 1921
19. Foreign Policy: Setting a Course of Expansionism
Essential Question: Was American foreign policy during the 1800s motivated more by realism or idealism?
Students work in pairs in a Social Studies Skill Builder to examine primary sources to analyze Americans’ views on overseas expansion at the turn of the 19th century.
20. The Spanish-American War
Essential Question: Why did the United States go to war against Spain in 1898, and why was the outcome significant?
In a Visual Discovery activity, students examine images of events leading up to and during the Spanish-American War and discuss how each event is related to the war or its aftermath.
21. Acquiring and Managing Global Power
Essential Question: Were U.S. interventions abroad between 1890 and 1917 motivated more by realism or idealism?
In a Writing for Understanding activity, pairs write, illustrate, and explain metaphor for U.S. foreign policy, one from the perspective of a location the United States became involved in and one from the U.S. perspective.
22. From Neutrality to War
Essential Question: Was it in the national interest of the United States to stay neutral or declare war in 1917?
In a Response Group activity, groups discuss the reasons for and against the entry of the United States into war and then face off in a debate.
23. The Course and Conduct of World War I
Essential Question: How was World War I different from previous wars?
In a Social Studies Skill Builder, students predict and confirm how new military technologies changed the experience of war for combatants.
24. The Home Front
Essential Question: How did Americans on the home front support or oppose World War I?
In an Experiential Exercise, groups participate in interviews to share the perspective of different groups of Americans living on the home front.
25. The Treaty of Versailles: To Ratify or Reject?
Essential Question: Should the United States have ratified or rejected the Treaty of Versailles?
In a Writing for Understanding activity, students take on the roles of internationalists and irreconcilables to prepare for writing a five-paragraph essay.
The Roaring Twenties and the Great Depression 1914 – 1944
26. Understanding Postwar Tensions
Essential Question: What effects did postwar tensions have on America’s founding ideals?
In a Visual Discovery activity, students identify postwar tensions in various images and then bring to life a clemency hearing for Sacco and Vanzetti.
27. The Politics of Normalcy
Essential Question: Did the Republican Era of the 1920s bring peace and prosperity to all Americans?
Students work in pairs in a Social Studies Skill Builder to analyze political cartoons from the Republican Era and identify each cartoonist’s point of view.
28. Popular Culture in the Roaring Twenties
Essential Question: What social trends and innovations shaped popular culture during the 1920s?
In an Experiential Exercise, students enact a Roaring Twenties party in which they dance the Charleston, learn about celebrities of the time, and record notes about individual achievements and popular culture trends of the 1920s.
29. The Clash Between Traditionalism and Modernism
Essential Question: How did social, economic, and religious tensions divide Americans during the Roaring Twenties?
In a Response Group activity, students discuss and debate important social issues from the 1920s.
30. The Causes of the Great Depression
Essential Question: What caused the most severe economic crisis in American history?
Students play the Yee Haw! game, an Experiential Exercise that simulates the rise and fall of the stock market in the mid- to late 1920s.
31. The Response to the Economic Collapse
Essential Question: How did the federal government respond to the economic collapse that began in 1929?
In a Social Studies Skill Builder, students classify statements as representing the ideologies of conservatives, liberals, or radicals.
32. The Human Impact of the Great Depression
Essential Question: How did the federal government respond to the economic collapse that began in 1929?
In a Social Studies Skill Builder, students classify statements as representing the ideologies of conservatives, liberals, or radicals.
33. The New Deal and Its Legacy
Essential Question: How did the expansion of government during the New Deal affect the nation?
In a Problem Solving Groupwork activity, groups create mural panels to show how the expansion of government during the New Deal affected Americans.
World War II and the Cold War 1917 – 1960
34. Origins of World War II
Essential Question: Could World War II have been prevented?
In an Experiential Exercise, pairs play a game of negotiation and lean about the concepts of aggression and appeasement.
35. The Impact of World War II on Americans
Essential Question: What kinds of opportunities and hardships did the war create for Americans at home and abroad?
In a Problem Solving Groupwork activity, students create wartime newsreels to portray the opportunities and hardships experienced by different groups of Americans.
36. Fighting World War II
Essential Question: What military strategies did the United States and its allies pursue to defeat the Axis powers in World War II?
In a Response Group activity, students take on the roles of military analysts and make recommendations for how to defeat Axis powers.
37. The Aftermath of World War II
Essential Question: Did the United States learn from past mistakes at the end of World War II?
In a Visual Discovery activity, students analyze images from the end of World War II and compare them with actions after World War I.
38. Origins of the Cold War
Essential Question: How did the United States and the Soviet Union become Cold War adversaries?
In a Response Group activity, students take on the role of foreign policy advisers and discuss possible responses to three postwar foreign policy challenges facing the United States. They then learn about actions taken to address those challenges and what role the Soviet Union played in those responses.
39. The Cold War Expands
Essential Question: Essential Question: Were the methods used by the United States to contain communism justified?
In a Social Studies Skill Builder, students play the role of CIA agents, gathering information about Cold War situations around the world. They are briefed about events in Europe, Asia, and Latin America and about effects of the arms race around the globe, and annotate maps with major events in each region.
40. Fighting the Cold War at Home
Essential Question: How did the anxieties raised by the Cold War affect life in the United States?
In two Experiential Exercises, students experience the anxiety present in the United States during the early Cold War. Students play a game to help them understand anticommunist hysteria and then learn what to do in case of a nuclear explosion.
The Search for a Better Life 1945 – 1990
41. The Fifties: Peace, Prosperity, and Progress
Essential Question: Why are the 1950s remembered as an age of affluence?
In an Experiential Exercise, students attend a neighborhood block party, where they mingle with other new neighbors in a 1950s suburb, exchange news about current events, and annotate images relating to these various topics.
42. Two Americas
Essential Question: Why did poverty persist in the United States in an age of affluence?
Students work in pairs in a Social Studies Skill Builder to examine a series of choropleth maps that reveal factors correlating to poverty during the postwar era.
43. Segregation in the Post-World War II Period
Essential Question: How did segregation affect American life in the postwar period?
In an Experiential Exercise, students feel the sting of discrimination as they take a test during which they are segregated into two groups that are treated very differently.
44. The Civil Rights Revolution: “Like a Mighty Stream”
Essential Question: How did civil rights activists advance the ideals of liberty, equality, and opportunity for African Americans?
In a Visual Discovery activity, students analyze primary source photographs and songs highlighting six important events of the civil rights movement.
45. Redefining Equality: From Black Power to Affirmative Action
Essential Question: How did civil rights activists change their strategies and goals in the 1960s and 1970s, and how successful were they in achieving racial equality?
In a Response Group activity, students analyze statistical data to discuss the degree to which racial equality has been achieved in the United States.
46. The Widening Struggle
Essential Question: Why and how did the civil rights movement expand?
In a Social Studies Skill Builder, students examine primary and secondary sources from diverse groups who fought for civil rights and place the groups along a spectrum of progress.
Tumultuous Times 1954 – 1980
47. The Age of Camelot
Essential Question: Was John F. Kennedy a great president?
In a Writing for Understanding activity, groups analyze primary and secondary sources to evaluate Kennedy’s success as a president and prepare for writing a five-paragraph essay.
48. The Great Society
Essential Question: What is the proper role of government in shaping American society?
In a Response Group activity, students evaluate the proper role of government in a series of three discussions.
49. The Emergence of a Counterculture Video
Essential Question: What was the impact of the counterculture on American society?
In an Experiential Exercise, students assume the roles of counterculture youth and mainstream Americans and participate in a dialogue.
50. The United States Gets Involved in Vietnam
Essential Question: Why did the United States increase its military involvement in Vietnam?
In a Response Group activity, students participate in a national security meeting to advise President Johnson on whether to increase military involvement in Vietnam.
51. Facing Frustration in Vietnam
Essential Question: What made the Vietnam War difficult to win?
In an Experiential Exercise, students are introduced to some of the frustration of fighting in Vietnam by playing a game of tug-of-war with constantly changing rules. They then make comparisons between their experience in the activity and the historical events and conditions of the war.
52. Getting Out of Vietnam
Essential Question: What lessons for Americans emerged from the Vietnam War?
In a Visual Discovery activity, students analyze photographs of Vietnam War events and discuss the memories the images evoked in people who lived through the war.
53. The Rise and Fall of Richard Nixon
Essential Question: What events influenced Richard Nixon’s rise to and fall from power?
In a Social Studies Skill Builder, pairs construct a graph of Nixon’s presidential approval ratings by matching events to ratings.
54. Politics and Society in the “Me” Decade
Essential Question: How should historians characterize the 1970s?
n a Problem Solving Groupwork activity, groups create time capsules with artifacts, visuals, and documents that reflect politics and society in the 1970s.
The Making of Modern America 1980 – Present
55. A Shift to the Right Under Reagan
Essential Question: Essential Question: How did the Reagan Revolution impact the nation?
In an Experiential Exercise, students assume the roles of liberal and conservative guests on a political news show and debate the merits of the Reagan Revolution.
56. Ending the Cold War
Essential Question: What were the effects of President Reagan’s foreign policy actions?
Students work in pairs in a Social Studies Skill Builder to analyze political cartoons that comment on Reagan’s foreign policy actions and apply what they learn to answer the Essential Question.
57. U.S. Domestic Politics at the Turn of the 21st Century
Essential Question: To what extent did Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and Barack Obama fulfill their domestic policy goals?
In a Problem Solving Groupwork activity, groups create Janus figures evaluating to what extent George H. W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and George W. Bush fulfilled their domestic policy goals.
58. U.S. Foreign Policy in a Global Age
Essential Question: How well have U.S. foreign policy decisions met the challenges of the global age?
In a Response Group activity, students assess and debate U.S. foreign policy choices made during the post-Cold War era.
59. 9/11 and Its Aftermath: Debating America’s Founding Ideals
Essential Question: What debates have arisen since 9/11 about how to balance security while preserving American ideals?
In a Social Studies Skill Builder, students examine primary and secondary sources and discuss the challenges the nation faced in preserving America’s founding ideals after 9/11.
Government Alive! Power, Politics, and You
Government Alive! Power, Politics, and You actively connects government to the everyday lives of high school students. With hands-on lessons and a concise, standards-based text, students become enthusiastically engaged in learning about the U.S. government at the local, state, and federal levels. Government Alive! Power, Politics, and You inspires and prepares students to become active citizens.
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Power, Authority, and Government
1. The Nature of Power, Politics, and Government
Essential Question: Why should you care about power, politics, and government?
In an Experiential Exercise, students participate in a trading game to explore how people gain and exercise power.
2. Comparing Forms of Government
Essential Question: How should political and economic power be distributed in a society?
In a Response Group activity, students participate as representatives at a constitutional convention charged with creating a stable government and economic system for a fictitious country that has just achieved independence.
Foundations of American Government
3. The Roots of American Democracy
Essential Question: What ideas gave birth to the world’s first modern democratic nation?
In an Experiential Exercise, groups walk through the Capitol’s National Statuary Hall to interview historical figures about key ideas that influenced democratic government in the United States.
4. The United States Constitution
Essential Question: How and why did the framers distribute power in the Constitution?
In a Social Studies Skill Builder, students delve into the Constitution during three engaging challenges that require them to examine specific provisions of the document as well as its overarching principles.
5. The Bill of Rights and Civil Liberties
Essential Question: How are your rights defined and protected under the Constitution?
In a Problem Solving Groupwork activity, students simulate a Supreme Court hearing on a first amendment case that focuses on a conflict of rights.
6. Federalism: National, State, and Local Powers
Essential Question: How does power flow through our federal system of government?
In a Response Group activity, students discuss three case studies illustrating the challenge to define national and state powers in the federal system.
Political Participation and Behavior
7. Citizen Participation in a Democracy
Essential Question: How can you make a difference in a democracy?
In a Visual Discovery activity, students examine case studies to identify the forms of civic participation which individuals or groups have used to effect change on the local, national, or international level.
8. Parties, Interest Groups, and Public Policy
Essential Question: Political parties and interest groups: How do they influence our political decisions?
In an Experiential Exercise, groups create informational websites about presidential candidates and interest groups before participating in a “meet and greet” to learn about the relationship between politicians and interest groups.
9. Public Opinion and the Media
Essential Question: To what extent do the media influence your political views?
In an Experiential Exercise, students work in groups to analyze persuasive techniques and then create and evaluate campaign commercials for presidential candidates.
10. Political Campaigns and Elections
Essential Question: Elections and voting: Why should they matter to you?
In an Experiential Exercise, students participate in various parts of the presidential electoral process from state primaries to the electoral college.
The Legislative Branch
11. Lawmakers and Legislatures
Essential Question: What makes an effective legislator?
In a Social Studies Skill Builder, students act as staff members for a newly elected member of Congress and learn important aspects of being an effective legislator.
12. Congressional Lawmaking
Essential Question: How do laws really get made?
In an Experiential Exercise, students create a mock House of Representatives, learning about key steps in the legislative process and the factors that influence the law-making process.
The Executive Branch
13. Chief Executives and Bureaucracies
Essential Question: What qualities do modern presidents need to fulfill their many roles?
In a Problem Solving Groupwork activity, groups create interactive exhibits on “a day in the life of” a modern president for four presidential libraries and museums.
14. The Federal Budget
Essential Question: Does the federal government budget and spend your tax dollars wisely?
In a Social Studies Skill Builder, students recommend a spending plan for the president to submit to Congress.
The Judicial Branch
15. Courts, Judges, and the Law
Essential Question: How is the U.S. judicial system organized to ensure justice?
In a Response Group activity, students carefully analyze sets of primary source documents and images to determine which courts produced them.
16. The Criminal Justice System
Essential Question: From doing the crime to doing time: How just is our criminal justice system?
In a Writing for Understanding activity, students review the criminal case of a death row inmate and write an amicus brief supporting or opposing the inmate’s claim that his constitutional rights were denied.
The United States and the World
17. Creating American Foreign Policy
Essential Question: How should the United States conduct foreign policy?
In a Response Group activity, students assume the roles of members of the National Security Council to advise the president on three foreign policy issues.
18. Confronting Global Issues
Essential Question: How effective are international organizations in responding to global issues?
In an Experiential Exercise, students assume the role of delegates to the United Nations to debate a resolution on global climate change.
Econ Alive! The Power to Choose
Econ Alive! The Power to Choose demystifies economics for students. A concise, standards-based text and multiple intelligence activities help students grasp complex concepts in context of understandable real-world situations. This program promotes an economic way of thinking about what’s going on in the world and why. Econ Alive! The Power to Choose also builds personal financial literacy to prepare high school students to participate in the economies of today and tomorrow.
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Unit 1 The Economic Fundamentals
1. An Economic Way of Thinking
Essential Question: How can you think like an economist?
In a Writing for Understanding activity, students analyze, create, and explain economic enigmas using the principles of economic thinking.
2. Economic Decision Making
Essential Question: Why can’t you always get what you want?
In a Social Studies Skill Builder, students play the Economics is Everywhere game to identify goods and services, factors of production, and the tradeoffs and opportunity costs of economic decisions.
3. Economic Systems
Essential Question: Who or what decides what you get?
In an Experiential Exercise, students engage in a simulation that parallels the production and consumption of goods in market and command economies.
4. Gains from Trade
Essential Question: How does trade make people better off?
In an Experiential Exercise, students take on the role of farmers who must specialize and trade in order to achieve their goals.
Unit 2 How Markets Work
5.Demand and Supply
Essential Question: What are demand and supply, and what factors influence them?
In a Social Studies Skill Builder, students work in pairs to analyze a series of newspaper headlines to determine their effect on the demand and supply curve.
6. Markets, Equilibrium, and Prices
Essential Question: How do you know when the price is “right”?
In an Experiential Exercise, students participate in a market simulation to discover how an equilibrium price is set and to experience the effects of price ceilings and price floors.
7. Market Structures and Market Failures
Essential Question: What happens when markets do not work perfectly?
In a Problem Solving Groupwork activity, students analyze an industry case study and create a graphic equation that demonstrates how their industry exemplifies the characteristics of one of the imperfect market structures.
Unit 3 Economic Institutions and Organizations
8. Money, Banking, Saving, and Investing
Essential Question: How should you spend, save, and invest your money?
In a Response Group activity, students act as financial advisers to make recommendations about spending, saving, and investing.
9. Entrepreneurs and Business Organizations
Essential Question: How do entrepreneurs use their resources to start businesses?
In an Experiential Exercise, students form sole proprietorships, partnerships, or corporations to develop and present business plans to investors.
10. Human Capital and the Labor Market
Essential Question: Why is it important to develop your human capital?
In a Writing for Understanding activity, students research information about a career of their choice and write a resume applying for a job approximately 10 years in the future.
Unit 4 Economics of the Public Sector
11. Government and the Economy
Essential Question: How should the U.S. government carry out its economic roles?
In a Social Studies Skill Builder, students analyze political cartoons to examine points of view on the economic roles of the U.S. government.
12. Taxes and Taxation
Essential Question: Who and what should be taxed?
In a Response Group activity, students attend a mock town meeting to debate four local tax proposals.
Unit 5 Measuring and Managing the Economy
13. Measuring the Economy
Essential Question: How do economists measure a nation’s economic health?
In a Visual Discovery activity, pairs examine four case studies, interpreting data and primary source photographs related to key economic indicators.
14. Fiscal and Monetary Policy
Essential Question: How do policy makers use fiscal and monetary policy to stabilize the economy?
In a Response Group activity, students assume the roles of voting members of the Federal Open Market Committee to determine the best policy for stabilizing the economy.
Unit 6 Globalization and the Global Economy
15. The United States and the Global Economy
Essential Question: How do countries conduct trade in the global economy?
In an Experiential Exercise, students become importers and exporters to trade goods in the global economy.
16. The Costs and Benefits of Globalization
Essential Question: Do the benefits of globalization outweigh the costs?
In a Writing for Understanding activity, students assume the roles of proponents and critics of globalization, participate in a series of debates, and write blogs evaluating whether the benefits of globalization outweigh the costs.
