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American History Briefing

October 21 - October 25,2002



We will step back in time this week, following our Columbus studies, and review who was really in North American before the Europeans ventured here.

Click here to Goto: http://www.rain.org/campinternet/american-history/culture-areas-north-america.html

Our main unit on Culture Areas and early American History is located at: http://www.rain.org/campinternet/american-history/early-american-history.html

American-History Timeline. Have you begun your class American History Timeline yet? If not get started and you will be able to enter the Timeline to GIS contest and win a new GPS unit for your class.

The Timeline your class creates will be used as part of a GIS Map of our history studies. We'll learn to use the remarkable data visualization tool that GIS technology provides to help us See the timeline of history as we unfold it during the year.

Look under "activities" on the top of the history homepage for your link to ongoing Timeline projects.

First Americans or First Nations are often best studied by looking at the "culture Areas" where the tribes lived.

A culture area is a region of the world in which people share similar cultural traits. Researchers may define a culture area by plotting the distribution of a single cultural trait, such as maize agriculture, and uniting all the communities that share this trait into a single cultural area. Alternatively, researchers sometimes choose to group communities into a culture area because the communities share several distinctive cultural traits, known as having a common cultural complex.

To help the study of Culture Areas come to life Camp Internet has created a GIS map listing North American Culture Areas with information on each.

Take your students on a tour of the American History GIS map this week. Goto: http://ims.rain.org/projects/warehouse/ and select the American History map

Literature continues this week with our study of American Transcendentalism.
Goto: http://www.rain.org/homeschool/history/transcendentalism-introduction-2002.html for your Introduction to American Writers such as Whitman, Thoreau and Emerson.

Our study of the History of Religion in America continues with a lesson on the Mississippi culture.

Goto: http://www.rain.org/campinternet/american-history/mound-builders-woodhenge.html to begin our study of the American Stonehenge. Called by some "Woodhenge" the city of Cahokia represents a high point in North American culture.