In this interactive game, students will enhance their analytical skills as they decipher clues and closely examine objects from the National Numismatics Collection in order to solve mysteries and escape from the coin vault. A fun way to learn about numismatics and explore American history, this activity is one of the learning resources included in Legendary Coins and Currency, an online exhibition.
Lost in the Coin Vault
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Legendary Coins and Currency Timeline
This interactive timeline will introduce students to a unique and interesting perspective of American history as they navigate chronologically through the objects included in the online exhibition entitled Legendary Coins and Currency. The timeline spans the years 1652 through 1974 and includes artifacts from every era of American history. Clicking on the images on the timeline will allow students to rotate and zoom in on objects from the National Numismatic Collection for detailed examination.
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Legendary Coins and Currency Homepage
This highly interactive online exhibition includes a game and timeline and allows students to rotate and zoom in on objects from the National Numismatic Collection for detailed examination. A glossary linked to the exhibition will help students learn challenging vocabulary. History, at times, gives certain objects special significance, and they become legendary. Unlike money that changes hands daily, legendary coins and currency are larger than life,and tell a unique history of the United States. Legendary Coins and Currency showshow major events in the nation's history have played a role in the evolution of America's money and determined how a select few pieces of currency have become important symbols of the American experience.
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First Lady for the Environment Homepage
Learn more about First Lady Claudia "Lady Bird" Johnson, wife of President Lyndon Baines Johnson and her work to protect the environment and bring beauty to every community. This module from the OurStory program includes active reading suggestions and discussion questions for the illustrated biography Miss Lady Bird's Wildflowers, by Kathi Appelt.
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History Explorer Podcast: Martha Prescott Norman
In this episode of the History Explorer podcast series, civil rights activist Martha Prescott Norman discusses her decision to join the civil rights movement against the wishes of her parents, and her experiences in the movement, including during Mississippi Freedom Summer in 1964.
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Activism through Art
These three activities are designed as follow-up materials for the National Youth Summit on Freedom Summer, but can be modified for any content.
Reframing History through Graphics: Creating Historic Graphic Novels
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National Youth Summit: Japanese American Incarceration in World War II
During World War II, the United States government forcibly removed over 120,000 Japanese Americans from the Pacific Coast. These individuals, two-thirds of them U.S. citizens, were sent to ten camps built throughout the western interior of the United States. Many would spend the next three years living under armed guard, behind barbed wire. In this webcast, the panelists explored this period in American history and considered how fear and prejudice can upset the delicate balance between the rights of citizens and the power of the state.
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Document Detective
Historians gather information about the past by looking at primary sources. In this activity, students will practice using primary sources by to learn about slavery and the Underground Railroad by analyzing newspaper advertisements regarding runaway slaves from the Charleston Mercury. It is included in an OurStory module entitled Slave Life and the Underground Railroad.
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History Explorer Podcast: Objects from September 11
In this episode of the History Explorer podcast series, James Gardner, Former Senior Scholar and Associate Director for Curatorial Affairs, discusses the Museum's collection efforts and object stories following the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001. The resource includes a teachers guide and student worksheet.
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Preparing for the Oath: Rights
Learn more about the rights of Americans through short videos, mini-activities, and practice questions in this segment of Preparing for the Oath: U.S. History and Civics for Citizenship. The nine questions included in this segment cover topics such as freedoms in the Constitution, the Civil Rights Movement, and rights to participate in government.
This site was designed with the needs of recent immigrants in mind. It is written at a “low-intermediate” ESL level.
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The Life and Music of Celia Cruz: Her Music
This resource offers audio samples of Cruz's music and video clips of her life and performances. In addition to salsa, Celia Cruz performed many genres of Afro-Caribbean songs, including the Cuban son, Puerto Rican bomba and plena, the Dominican merengue, the Colombian cumbia, Brazilian music, blues, jazz, rock & roll, and dance music such as the rumba, mambo, and guaracha. Her repertoire showcased the power of her voice, as well as her skill and mastery of rhythmic complexities.
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Historians are Detectives
In the classroom activity, students will be able to explain the difference between primary and secondary sources, and explain how the value of using primary sources is important to history. By using primary sources to answer a series of questions, they will see that, much like detectives, historians have to prove that their answers are correct by providing evidence. This activity is included in the online exhibition from the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History entitled The Star-Spangled Banner: The Flag that Inspired the National Anthem.
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September 11: Bearing Witness to History
This online exhibition commemorates the tragic events of September 11, 2001. It includes highlights of the exhibition that was on display at the Museum from September 11, 2002 until July 6, 2003, including selected objects, photographs, personal stories and video.
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Object Portraits
This “getting to know you” activity asks kids to show who they are by composing a portrait made of their objects. It also introduces or reinforces an idea central to historical research—objects hold stories about the people who own them and when they lived. This activity suite is designed to offer a variety of ways to conduct the activity. This activity can also be paired with the National Museum of American History exhibition Pushing Boundaries: Portraits by Robert Weingarten.
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Celebrating Hispanic Heritage: Peoples, Places, and Events on Stamps
Learn more about Hispanic Heritage by exploring different topics through American stamps such as: Hispanic Contributions to the Americas, Explorers, Settlement of the Southwest, Historic Architecture, Liberators and Heroes, International Cooperation, Reformers, Music, Arts, Dance, Entertainment, Journalism, Sports, and the Military. Stamps illuminate what we value as a people and a culture, and the National Postal Museum’s "Celebrating Hispanic Heritage: People, Places and Events on Stamps" sheds new light on the many contributions of Hispanic Americans and Latinos to the exploration, cult
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History Explorer Podcast: Plains Indian Ledger Drawings
In this episode of the History Explorer Podcast, curator Rayna Green discusses what we can learn from seemingly simple line drawings about the lives and memories of Plains Indians who lived over 130 years ago. The resources include a teacher guide and related image.
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The Bracero Program: A Historical Investigation
Historical research starts with a question about the past.However, piecing together an accurate answer to these questions is not as straightforward as it may seem. Primary sources can—and often do—conflict with one another, as do secondary sources. That said, sources can also complement one another in a way that allows for a deeper level of historical understanding. The historian’s job is to explore and evaluate all kinds of sources to construct an answer—their interpretation of the past. Historical investigations help students build these skills.
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The Banner Yet Waves: 200 Years of Star-Spangled History
More than just the tale of one flag and the song it inspired, the history of the “Star-Spangled Banner” is also the story of how Americans, often in times of war and popular crisis, have expressed their patriotism and defined their identity as one community and one nation. From the “broad stripes and bright stars” of the flag raised in victory on a Baltimore dawn in 1814 grew a national anthem and a national symbol that still inspires and unites Americans 200 years later.
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World War I: Lessons and Legacies
In honor of America's entry into "The War to End All Wars" in 1917, World War I: Lessons and Legacies explores the war and its lasting impact and far-reaching influence on American life. From the Great Migration to the 1918 flu pandemic and from the unionization movement to women's suffrage, World War I led to pivotal changes in America's culture, technology, economy, and role in the world. It redefined how we saw ourselves as Americans and its legacy continues today.
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Making Sense of "Failed" Car Technology
Students can learn about the history of experimentation and innovation in the design of steam-powered, internal-combustion, electric, and solar-powered automobiles. This reference page is included in the online exhibition entitled America on the Move, which focuses on transportation in US history.
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More Pages to Explore .....
