This Web Resource list was developed for 4th-6th grade teachers in the Los Altos CA School District. I hope it will be useful for any 4th-6th grade teacher who teaches social studies.
California Gold Rush WebQuest--Diverse People Make the Journey ou are traveling to California from all over the world. You want to cash in on the Gold Rush. You are leaving friends and family behind. You will create a scrapbook of your journey and what you experience when you arrive in California.
Put yourselves into the shoes of these travelers and look at the world through their eyes.
Deer Creek Schools' Gold Rush Project Deer Creek School is located in Nevada City, California.Discover how the historical landmarks of the area weave a tapestry of gold rush history.
Free Gold! For this once in a lifetime experience, your job will be to CREATE A DIARY using the information you will learn on the Internet. You will create a person to be in the year 1849.
Ohlone/Costanoan Esselen Nation Ohlone band who lives in southern Monterey Bay area including the lush northern Salinas Valley, the Monterey Peninsula, the rugged Big Sur coastline, and the mountainous interior from the Carmel highlands to the area around Soledad
The Agua Caliente Band of the Cahuilla Tribe The Cahuillas and most other tribes of the area belong to the Shoshonean division of the Uto-Aztecan linguistic family. Tribes in this group range from the Aztecs of Mexico to the Hopi, Papago and Pima of Arizona, the Ute of Colorado and tribes of the Morongo Reservation area, including the Serrano, Cupeno and Gabrieleno.
The Cahuilla There are 10 reservations in Southern Ca. Those who settled in what is now Palm Springs are the Agua Caliente Indians. Other Bands are the Morongo, Los Coyotes, Torres-Martinez, Cabazon and the Santa Rosa.
The Kumeyaay The Kumeyaay Nation extends from San Diego and Imperial Counties in California to 60 miles south of the Mexican border. The Kumeyaay are members of the Yuman language branch of the Hokan group.
The Miwok The Miwoks lived in the territory which stretches from eastern portions of Contra Costa County from Walnut Creek north, northeast to the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta.
Benjamin Franklin--Glimpses of a Man Benjamin Franklin was more than one of the founding fathers of our new democracy; he was a scientist, an inventor, a statesman, a printer, a philosopher, a musician, and an economist. This site also includes a movie on this famous man.
Causes of War History Central's website provides links to the events that led up to the war including the French and Indian War, Stamp Tax, Townshend Act, Boston Massacre, and the Boston Tea Party.
Colonial Business WebQuest After stepping out of your time machine you realize that you trapped in Colonial America. You will become familiar with the daily life, clothing, traditions, and businesses of that time. Be prepared to live the life of an American Colonist!
Colonial Living History Museum Teacher created project plan for a virtual colonial museum project created by John McPherson, now at Los Paseos School in San Jose
Cultures in Conflict--Lessons of Jamestown Teacher created project plan (created by Margaret Rodrigues at Los Paseos School in San Jose. The goals are:
To study historical documents and artifacts, in order to experience history as a dynamic discipline which studies, interprets, and debates the meaning of these sources and through those of our historical past.
To understand the cultural differences between and among the early settlers of Jamestown, the Native inhabitants, and African slaves.
To appreciate how the clash of these three cultures brought about different views of what becoming an American meant.
To speculate how these cultures could have resolved difficulties in different manners.
The Pilgrim Life Adventure WebQuest Task 1 Create a family tree to find out about your ancestors.
Task 2 Create a journal to keep the new information you are learning about the Pilgrims in. Keep this in a safe place so you can write or draw in it every day.
Task 3 Complete a Venn Diagram showing how your life and the Pilgrim's life are the same or different.
Task 4 Create a vehicle of your own to travel in.
Kid Info's Explorers Site Accounts of European voyages and explorations to North America, from Columbus's Atlantic crossing in 1492 to the famous trip through the Northwest Passage by Roald Amundsen in 1905. Alphabetical Navigation permits browsing by explorers' names. Documents the discovery and exploration of the Americas with both manuscripts and published maps. Many of these maps reflect the European Age of Discoveries, dating from the late 15th century to the 17th century.
One Nation Many Cultures WebQuest Every year the Smithsonian Institution sponsors the Folk Life Festival, which occurs on the Mall during the week leading up to the Fourth of July. Each year several different ethnic groups are selected to share aspects of their culture. Next year, the organizers of the Folk Life Festival have decided to celebrate Native American culture.
Virtual Museum of New France Links to the explorers Native Americans (First Nation) and other history sites---Mostly Canadian history--but some is relevant to U.S. History
Daily Life in Ancient Civilizations Includes: Early Man Ancient Rome Ghana, Mali, Songhay, Ancient Meso/Sumer, Ancient China, NW Pacific Coast Indians ,Ancient Egypt, Ancient India, Ancient Kush, Inca Empire, Daily Life Sites, Ancient Greece, Maya Empire, Ancient History Page
Odyssey Online Odyssey Online is an interactive journey through ancient Egypt, Greece, Rome, and the Near East; the ancient Americas; and sub-Saharan Africa of the 19th and 20th centuries. On Odyssey, you can explore works of art from the collections of Emory University's Michael C. Carlos Museum and the Memorial Art Gallery of the University of Rochester. These objects--made from stone, clay, wood, metal, and fiber--tell us fascinating stories about the people who made them, in distant lands and times! Enjoy the journey!
McClung Museurm's Ancient Egypt In this exhibition, the ancient Egyptians still speak to us through passages taken from their writings and through the many objects they left behind. A fine collection of both original objects and some replicas which complement them are arranged in this gallery by subject categories such as history, daily life, religion, and writing.
THE TOMB of NIANKHKHNUM and KHNUMHOTEP In 1964 in the ancient necropolis of Saqqara, Egyptian archaeologist Ahmed Moussa discovered
a series of tombs with rock-cut passages in the escarpment facing the causeway that lead to the pyramid of Unas.
The Tomb of Senneferi n these pages you can find out about fieldwork project in Egypt from 1992 to 2002: what the tomb is, how archaeology is done, what we find, and many other things!
Ancient Greek Civilization History of Aegean Civilization--includes The Minoans
The Rise of the Mycenean
The Myceneans
Homer (The Odyssey and the Illiad are full length versions of Homer's Works.)
The Odyssey
The Illiad
The Greek Dark Ages
The Rise of Greece
Mythology and the Constellations The earliest references to the mythological significance of the Greek constellations may be found in the works of Homer, which probably date to the 7th century B.C. In the Iliad, for instance, Homer describes the creation of Achilleus's shield by the craftsman god Hephaistos:
The Ancient City of Athens The Ancient City of Athens is a photographic archive of the archaeological and architectural remains of ancient Athens (Greece).
Ancient History Sourcebook: The Code of Hammurabi [Hammurabi] was the ruler who chiefly established the greatness of Babylon, the world's first metropolis. Many relics of Hammurabi's reign ([1795-1750 BC]) have been preserved, and today we can study this remarkable King....as a wise law-giver in his celebrated code. . .
Mesopotamia--the Assyrians The Assyrians were Semitic people living in the northern reaches of Mesopotamia; they have a long history in the area, but for most of that history they are subjugated to the more powerful kingdoms and peoples to the south.
Ziggurats Temples were originally built on platforms. During the third millennium B.C., these were made higher and bigger. Eventually it was decided to build even higher temples on platforms which were stepped.
These stepped towers we call ziggurats.
Cave Art Lesson A lesson on Cave Art of Early Man. The lesson has follow-up questions and additional links are included for more study and illustrations.
Cro-Magnon-1 During construction for a railroad in 1868, a rock shelter in a limestone cliff was uncovered. Near the back of the shelter, an occupation floor was recognized, and when excavated, it revealed the remains of four adult skeletons, one infant, and some fragmentary bones.
Early Human Phylogeny A phylogenetic tree is a graphical means to depict the evolutionary relationships of a group of organisms. The phylogenetic tree below shows one reconstruction of the relationships among early human species, as we best know them today. It is a clickable image map.
Early Man WebQuest Congratulations! You have been hired by the board of directors for The Museum of Natural History to unlock the mysteries of Homo Erectus, Neanderthal or Cro-Magnon. You are to use Internet resources to collect information on one of the three hominid groups and then build a three-dimensional model with an informational backboard which displays the hominid group's environment and living conditions.
Homo Habilis Homo habilis is the earliest known species of the genus Homo; that is, the first human species. It existed from approximately 2.2 to 1.6 million years ago in east Africa.
Walking with Cavemen BBC Broadcast: Professor Robert Winston meets Lucy, the first upright ape, and follows her ancestors on the three-million-year journey to civilisation. Broadcast in 2003, Walking with Cavemen combined special effects with the latest scientific theories, to show us what it really means to be human.
