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Capitol Building in Washington, D.C. circa 1860.[/caption]
Prepare your students for their trip to Washington D.C.! Millions of travelers tour Washington D.C. each year, including thousands of students and their chaperones looking to take in some of the finest cultural institutions, monuments, and government buildings our nation has to offer. A favorite stop on such a trip is often the National Mall, a collection of national memorials and parks which includes many iconic monuments and over 1,000 acres of greenspace.
Helping students make sense of all there is to see and do in our nation's capital can be a real challenge. The following unit plan produced during the Emerging America workshop “Sparking Inquiry in World Geography and History” seeks to prepare students for their trip and get them excited to tour monuments such as:
- Capitol Building
- Lincoln Memorial
- WWII Memorial
- Vietnam Memorial
Suzanne Judson-White, former Assistant Director of the Emerging America program and current Assistant Director of Professional Development at the Collaborative for Educational Students, offered the following feedback:
“After recently chaperone of group of middle school students on a class trip to Washington, DC, this unit plan would have been the ideal preparation for an overwhelming experience. With so many buildings on and off the mall, providing historical context would have given students a way to make sense of the cluster of buildings that huddle around the 146-acre National Mall.
View more details, download and access the lesson plan online.
Emerging America brings this lesson to you thanks to the outstanding primary sources and materials provided by the Library of Congress. Aligned to the Common Core and National History Standards.
