Secondary Social Studies Lessons

This lesson guides students through the process of engaging in an inquiry-based exploration of the causes of the decline and fall of the Western Roman Empire. It is written for a 9th grade class, but the data sets could be adjusted to accommodate younger or older students.

This lesson plan utilizes the online resource Glogster to allow students to create a multimedia Glog that describes how the 5 factors that influence climate work together to create the climate of a major city of their choice around the world.

This WebQuest guides student teams to research and answer questions about their assigned African nation. It includes research about the economic growth of modern China to gain understanding of how developing countries might further expand economically.

This WebQuest has student teams learning about the ESPRAT+G aspects of ancient Greece and Rome. They then apply their understanding to modern day society.

This "learning pursuit" site though not a WebQuest does give students tasks and resources. It covers several essential questions and IB themes regarding China in the 20th century.

This WebQuest has the students learning about ancient China. Two important concepts are how nations develop and culture.

Social studies teachers use some form of this acronym describing economics, sociology, political science, religion, the arts, technology and how they interact with geography. This Web page gives definitions and descriptions of each.

This "learning pursuit" site though not a WebQuest does give students tasks and resources. It provides students a self-guided unit to learn the 5 themes of geography.

This "learning pursuit" site though not a WebQuest does give students tasks and resources. The students gather information around the provided essential questions studying the rise of Hitler. This learning pursuit offers an application of student learning to the modern day.

This WebQuest is formatted here in separate folders for easier navigation. There is also a full one page version one can access.

This WebQuest focuses on the developing civilizations of the Middle East. Judaism, Christianity and Islam are also studied.

Students use their previous study of the American Constitution and their current learning about Reconstruction to apply it to the possibility of rebuilding 21st century North Korea.

This WebQuest is supported by in-class activities, instruction and readings to help students gain understanding about these two large topics as they do their research. Students work to analyze their learning and research applying it to the present day.

This WebQuests guides students to research and work to answer the provided essential questions dealing with the rise of dictatorships leading up to WWII.

This "learning pursuit" site though not a WebQuest does give students tasks and resources. It was created for 12th grade IB History students but can be adapted for younger non-IB students. It covers some of the main topics for the European events of WWII.

This is a concept formation lesson about totalitarianism, intended for the Interwar Period in World History.

This lesson was designed for high school freshmen, however, could be used across multiple grades. In this students review a timeline of the Russian Revolution and then participate in an Inquiry Based lesson, where they look at primary sources to decipher the major causes of the Russian Revolution.

A technology integrated lesson using Google Earth and a Tiki Toki timeline in order to help students understand the emergence of nation-states in Europe in the late medieval period.

This lesson serves to provide students with an understanding of the political divisions that emerged with regards to the Vietnam War in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Students will have some background information about this topic both from this course and from United States History courses taken in middle school. Students will have a firm understanding of activism in the 1960s after having learned about the Counterculture in the previous chapter of their textbook. Students will have some knowledge about the Vietnam War and some of the political divisions that sprouted from this event from their middle school classes in United States History. It is important to discuss the political divisions about the Vietnam War because students will learn methods employed by other students in the past to express their political views (students can make connections to the world beyond the classroom), the role of music in the anti-war movement (again making connections to the world beyond the classroom), ways that the home front during the Vietnam War was unique (allowing students to engage in ethical valuing and to make connections to the world beyond the classroom), and how the American government was influenced by the Vietnam War (integrating topics in government).

The students will learn the three main theories why the Indus River Valley civilization declined through using the inquiry model. The three main reasons are: Invasion by the Aryans, effects of Plate Tectonics, and Natural Disasters, such as flooding, and monsoons. The lesson will begin with a demonstration the three main causes. The students will work in pairs and as a class to formulate hypotheses of why the Indus River Valley declined. Students will work similar to historians by reviewing secondary sources to support their hypotheses.

This lesson walks students through the critical attributes of Western industrialization towards the end of the 19th centruy.

This is a concept formation lesson on the caste system for 9th grade World History students.

This lesson uses several reading and writing strategies, including guided readings and RAFT first-person writing, to help students understand some reasons for increased immigration to the US in the late 1800s. It also includes discussion of Push vs. Pull immigration factors. All aspects of this lesson were designed for use with an Interactive Whiteboard, but could be modified.

A lesson plan where students can investigate the famous case of Marbury v Madison, and the importance of judicial review.