Historical Quests
Oregon-California Trails - Learning Center
The Oregon-California Trails - Learning Center helps to educate people about the westward emigrant trails. The story of the emigrant trails is immensely rich and spans not only the middle decades of the nineteenth century, but continues to influence our world today.
Perseus
The Perseus site contains about 400 ancient Greek texts and 13,000 images. While not interactive, it illustrates the bountiful historical sites, available on the Web and to which most schools lack access currently.
National Museum of the American Indian
The National Museum of the American Indian, part of the Smithsonian, contains 800,000 artifacts of Native American culture from sites all over North and South America. Check out their on-line offerings.
Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago
The Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago is now the home of "Sue", the largest-ever fossil of a T-rex.
Royal Museum of Ontario Canada - Inuit
The Royal Museum of Ontario includes a virtual multi-media exhibition exploring Inuit historic carvings and culture.
Lascaux
Try this interactive site for studying the cave paintings of early man. The site is in French, but the paintings speak to every language.
Slavery in America
Slavery in America, underwritten by New York Life, is a deliberate search for previously unknown documents and eyewitness stories about slavery, the Jim Crow years and 20th century segregation. The site has been composed by high school teachers and prominent historians.
Pacific Islanders Cultural Association (P.I.C.A.)
P.I.C.A. or Pacific Islander Cultural Association is new to the Web. In the real world P.I.C.A. lives in San Francisco and reflects Samoan, Tongan, and Hawaiian cultures. For environmental studies in this region search on PREL.
Living History Farm
While these topics are a mainstay of early US history, few interactive resources place students right in the middle of these environments. Here's an example from Urbandale, Iowa.
Check out similar opportunities in your area.
At one Iowa school a groomed portion of the schoolyard has been subdivided into acreage for woodland, prairie and wetland environments. Students perform hands-on "history" in these environments.
The experiences in these historical environments can be compared and contrasted with the same settings today to help students understand continuity and change over centuries. Most environmental studies projects focus on short-range changes and scale. These sites provide another perspective on the impact of time. They have received high praise from teachers.
Other Areas To Check Out...
• Adventures
• The Library of Congress
• Environmental Conferences
• Diverse Exhibits
• Black History
• Water and Air Systems
