Introduction
The Western-centric approach to American history found in many U.S. history curricula leaves out important voices, including American-Indian voices, and does a disservice to all students. Fortunately, online access to excellent, free resources means teachers do not have to wait for policy changes at the top to include American-Indian history in the classroom. This toolkit provides links to and descriptions of five excellent online sources for teaching about American Indians.
Essential Question
- What online resources are available to help teachers integrate more accurate and inclusive curricula about American Indians?
Online Resources for Teaching About American Indians
EDSITEment!
National Endowment of the Humanities
EDSITEment! is an online library of lesson plans, which include objectives, activities, assessments and worksheets. Users can filter for social studies and history lessons and apply the subtopic filter “Native Americans” to narrow the results even further. When using this search criteria, users will have dozens of lesson plans to choose from.
Indian Education For All
Montana Office of Public Instruction
“Indian Education For All” offers hundreds of culturally relevant resources, including lesson plans, videos and podcasts. The resources are organized into areas such as lesson plans and resources, English language learners and professional development.
American Indian Heritage Resources
Utah State Office of Education
“American Indian Heritage Resources" compiles a wide range of resources for educators and students, including links to general information sites, films and videos, and student-facing websites. The site also includes downloadable films for classroom use and lesson plans for grades K-12.
Lessons of Our Land
The Indiana Land Tenure Foundation
This website is an interdisciplinary curriculum on American-Indian history and contemporary issues with a focus on the relationship between land and culture. “Lessons of Our Land” includes lessons, games and stories for pre-K–12 classrooms. Users can search for content with filters like grade level, resource type, state, subject and standards.
Teaching About Native American Issues
Understanding Prejudice
“Teaching About Native American Issues” includes an excellent list of do’s and don’ts when teaching and learning about American Indians. This resource offers advice on how to address stereotypes and myths, and on what type of language educators should use (and what to avoid) when teaching about Native-American history and culture.