Back to Standards Index: National Council for the Social Studies C3 Framework
Standards Index: D2.His.5.9-12.
Find lessons and videos that align with standards
Analyze how historical contexts shaped and continue to shape people’s perspectives.

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Brown v. Board of Ed and Busing Promised Integration. Why Are Schools Still Segregated?
Students will learn why much of the school integration achieved through cross-town busing has unraveled over the last few decades.

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The War on Terror and the Debate Over Torture
Students will learn about the aftermath of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, focusing on the use of “enhanced interrogation techniques” and the ensuing calls for accountability.

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The Cold War and the Nuclear Weapons Threat
Students will learn about the Cold War-era nuclear standoff between the United States and the Soviet Union, and its connection to the threat of nuclear conflict today.

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Holocaust Survivors Fleeing Ukraine Find New Home in Germany
Students will examine the history of the Holocaust in Ukraine, and compare and contrast the current crisis in Ukraine.

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The Battle for Votes: Gerrymandering
Students will learn the causes and effects of gerrymandering, and how court decisions authorizing race-based gerrymandering have reshaped American politics and created complex legacies.

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Reagan: Foreign Policy and a Story from Central America (El Salvador)
Students will learn how President Reagan’s administration, trying to stop Soviet communist influence around the world, supported authoritarian regimes, and the impact that had in El Salvador and in the U.S. then and now.

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How the Military Response to 9/11 Led to Two Decades of War in Afghanistan
Students will learn how the U.S. military response to the 9/11 attacks led to decades of war and a chaotic ending."

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Aftermath of the War on Terror
Students will learn how the climate of fear and panic following the 9/11 attacks resulted in the arrest and imprisonment of innocent Arab immigrants.

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The Birth of the Environmental Movement: DDT and Rachel Carson
Students will learn how the U.S. government came to develop environmental protection policies and what that means today as we struggle to balance the risk between pesticides and disease.

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Ecology: The Yellowstone Wildfires of 1988
Students will learn how the Yellowstone fires of 1988 created a national controversy that challenged long-held assumptions about the role that fires should play in forestry policy.

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1924 Democratic Convention: Tension Over Immigration
Students will learn how the 1924 Democratic National Convention became a raucous battleground over the influence of the Ku Klux Klan.

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Sanctuary Cities: An Uproar That Began Long Ago - Mini Lesson
Students will learn about how as deportations of unauthorized immigrants rose under President Donald Trump, some churches and cities declared themselves sanctuaries and shielded migrants from immigration enforcement.

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From Women's Suffrage to the ERA
Students will examine the history of the Equal Rights Amendment, develop a claim, and use evidence gathered from a variety of sources to support their answer.

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1912 Republican Convention: TR Starts the Bull Moose Party
Students will learn how former President Theodore Roosevelt used the newly created direct primary system to challenge incumbent President William Howard Taft for the Republican Party’s nomination in 1912.

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How the U.S. Has Treated Wartime Refugees
Students will examine the question of what obligation countries have to refugees. As Afghan and Ukrainian migrants settle in the U.S., this video asks whether refugee resettlement is better now than it was for the Vietnamese 50 years ago.

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1968 Democratic National Convention: The Mess in Chicago
Students will learn how internal tensions over Vietnam and the cultural changes of the 1960s led to violence and chaos at the 1968 Democratic National Convention.

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McCarthyism: Populism and the Press
Students will learn how Joseph McCarthy rode to power on a wave of anti-communist fears, and how television contributed to both his rise and fall.

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How a Folk Singer’s Murder Forced Chile to Confront Its Past – Mini Lesson
Students will connect the events of the 1973 U.S.-backed Chilean military coup to the Cold War by focusing on the killing of folk singer and activist Victor Jara.

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American Reckoning
Students will learn about a little-known story of the civil rights movement told using excerpts from “American Reckoning," a Retro Report and PBS Frontline collaboration.

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1964 Republican Convention: Chaos & Conservatism
Students will learn how Senator Barry Goldwater’s nomination in 1964 led to a disastrous Republican convention and a Democratic landslide in November, but not without giving birth to the conservative movement that has come to dominate today’s Republican Party.

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Vincent Chin and Asian American Civil Rights
Students will learn about the case that set the precedent for racially motivated attacks against Asian Americans being prosecuted as hate crimes.

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Transgender Rights, Won Over Decades, Face New Restrictions
Students will learn about historical and contemporary demands for equality by transgender people.

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The Cold War in Latin America: Massacre in El Salvador
Students will learn about the Cold War in Latin America, with a focus on the El Mozote massacre in El Salvador.

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Unprepared: Lessons From Two Massive Oil Spills
Students will learn about the Exxon Valdez and BP Deepwater Horizon oil spills, as well as examining the long-term effects on ecosystems and coastal communities.

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Extremism in America
Students will explore the seeds of the extremist ideologies that continue to be influential today and the government’s failed attempts to stop the broader white supremacist movement.

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Dictators and Civil Wars: The Cold War in Latin America
Students will learn how driven by fears of the rise of Communism, the United States adopted a policy of containment, intervening in the politics of countries across the globe, including many countries in Latin America.

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Facing Eviction
Students will learn about housing insecurity during the Covid-19 pandemic and how eviction outcomes often came down to what county, or even city, a tenant lived in.

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Election of 1860: Slavery Splits the Democrats
Students will learn how the issue of slavery caused a split in the Democratic Party that led to the Civil War and paved the way for 50 years of Republican dominance in national politics.

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Immigration in the 1990s: Proposition 187
Students will learn about the anti-immigration movement in California in the 1990s, and why it is relevant today.