Resource Suggestions for SS.5.4.1.1k
The following materials are available at the Instructional Resource Center:
National Geographic Society Picture Pacs: Native Americans I and Native Americans II (Call No. SSS 970 NAT). These are two notebooks filled with overheads of maps, photographs, and artwork depicting Native Americans. Included in the notebooks is a resource guide for teachers with lesson plan ideas. Native Americans I includes the Eastern Woodlands and Plains Indians. Native Americans II includes the Southwest, Northwest Coast, and Arctic Indians.
Ready-To-Use Activities & Materials on Coastal Indians
Ready -To-Use Activities & Materials on Desert Indians
Ready -To-Use Activities & Materials on Plains Indians
Ready -To-Use Activities & Materials on Woodland Indians
all by Dana Newmann (Call No. SSS 970 NEW)
These are excellent resource books containing information on the history and culture of the Indians, activities for the classroom, ready-to-use reproducibles, and a teachers resource guide. Not only do they provide excellent materials for students, but they also provide excellent information for teachers who are looking for more background content knowledge themselves.
Adventures in Economics and U.S. History, Volume 1: Colonial America by Suzanne Gallagher and Martha Hopkins (Call No. CR 330 GAL) has two great lesson plans for teaching about economics and American Indians. Indian Producers and Consumers has students read and discuss stories about economic life in three or more Indian nations, noting the available resources as well as what was produced and how it was produced in each tribe. Indian Economies has students learn that all societies must answer three basic questions and that there are three main types of economies using the Indian nations read about in the previous lesson.
Geography of America from Past to Present by the Teacher’s Curriculum Institute (Call No. SSS 970 GEO)has a section with four activities about Native Americans adapting to the environment. The lessons include overheads and placards of primary source materials that are used to hypothesize and research how American Indians adapted to the environment. Activities include one where students get to be anthropologists and one in which they write stories about how the Indians in the Southwest live on the land that includes images and music of the Southwest.
The following resources are available online:
http://www.haskell.edu/archive/links.htm takes you to Haskell Indian Nations University in Lawrence. They recently opened a new cultural museum on campus. This page provides links to many good American Indian sites.
http://www.nmai.si.edu is the site for the Smithsonian's new National Museum of the American Indian scheduled to open in September 2004. There is an education link on this page that brings you to some PDF teacher resource materials. Some are designed for students taking their students to the museum, but are still very useful for anyone to use.
http://www.kstrom.net/isk/stories/myths.html provides American Indian myths and legends organized by regions.
http://catlinclassroom.si.edu is the site designed to accompany the George Catlin art exhibit sponsored by the Smithsonian. Called "Campfire Stories with George Catlin", it includes audio and video interviews, Catlin's art, and many great lesson plans. Be sure to visit this site.
http://jamaica.u.arizona.edu/ic/kmartin/School/amer3.htm is the "First Americans, Five Tribes" site. It is an interactive site about five tribes from various regions, including the Tlingit, Dine, Lakota, Muscogee, and Iroqouis. It includes information on land, clothes, food, housing, stories, and their flags.
Here are a couple of good online lesson plans:
Not "Indians", Many Tribes: Native American Diversity at http://edsitement.neh.gov/view_lesson_plan.asp?id=324 provides an opportunity for students to look at primary source materials to research several Indian nations.
Lewis & Clark: Same Place, Different Perspectives at http://www.nationalgeographic.com/xpeditions/lessons/06/g35/sameplace.html
lets students look at the different ways that American Indians looked at their land as compared to the explorers.
Other great lesson plans on American Indians can be found by going to http://www.marcopolosearch.org and using the search words "American Indians".