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American History Briefing
December 16 - December 22, 2002
Winter Solstice and American History
The First North American Colonies.
What was the culture and life of those very first colonists. What literature, writtings and diaries, did they leave for us to study? Goto: http://www.rain.org/campinternet/american-history/colonies Early Colonial Studies to begin.
The Pilgrims and the settlers in Virginia prepared the way for what became the "Original 13 Colonies". The Founding group that was to shape our Declaration of Independence and our new Constitution.
As we study the early Colonies in North American our goal is to understand how were the colonies were created? Were all the early colonies established by Kings or Traiding Companies or private investors? Was there any other source of funding for the first Colonies? What was the religion and political system used by the first Colonies? And how did all this lead to the creating of the "American Character"?
Classroom Activities:
1.) Winter Solstice 2002 We will study how Solstice was celebrated in North America. First review this link for an overview of Winter Solstice from the Global Garden classroom.
Woodhenge is an early North American site that appears to be designed like Stonehenge, in England, only the site in the Mississippi Valley created the Circles using Wood pillars. (Hence the name "Wodhenge").
"The culture and people who evolved in the area which came to be know as the Mississippi Culture area represents a high point in North American culture and religion development.
Remarkably similar to Stonehenge in Britan, the round wooden structures built by the people of Chaoka remain a mystery.
Why were they built? What use did the people make of them and was there shared learning between Britan and North America?
2.) The Acorn - Classroom Activity
3.) 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.
History
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 - Reading
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.