In January 1863, President Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation went into effect, and the Union Army began recruiting Black Americans to fight the Civil War. Thousands answered the call. Soldiers of the 54th Massachusetts infantry regiment came from all over the country, dedicated to both the destruction of slavery and the advancement of racial equality nationwide. Their heroism transformed the conflict from a battle to preserve the Union to a grand struggle for freedom. Discover the true story of the men whose fame was restored to public memory by the celebrated 1989 film Glory. The Woodson Center's Black History and Excellence curriculum is based on the Woodson Principles and tells the stories of Black Americans whose tenacity and resilience enabled them to overcome adversity and make invaluable contributions to our country. It also teaches character and decision-making skills that equip students to take charge of their futures. These lessons in Black American excellence are free and publicly available for all.

In this activity, students discover the relationship between an object's mass and the amount of space it takes up (its volume). Students learn about the concept of displacement and how an object can float if it displaces enough water, and the concept of density and its relationship to mass and volume.

Finding themselves in the middle of the Amazon rainforest after a plane crash, students use map scales, keys, and longitude and latitude coordinates to figure out where they are. Then they work in groups to generate ideas and make plans. They decide where they should go to be rescued, the distance to that location, the route to take, and make calculations to estimate walking travel time.

In this lesson, the students will discover the relationship between an object's mass and the amount of space it takes up (its volume). The students will also learn about the concepts of displacement and density.

Deputy U.S. Marshal Bass Reeves was a highly respected and wildly successful peace officer in Indian Territory for over thirty years, starting when he was first commissioned by federal Judge Isaac Parker in 1875. His life saw the enormous transformations that swept through the country during the Civil War, the days of the “wild west” in the federal territories, and the final settling of the frontier. The exploits of Deputy Marshal Reeves as he fought and captured hundreds of outlaws made him famous in his own time. This lesson tells the story of Reeves, his world, and his relentless pursuit of justice.

The Woodson Center's Black History and Excellence curriculum is based on the Woodson Principles and tells the stories of Black Americans whose tenacity and resilience enabled them to overcome adversity and make invaluable contributions to our country. It also teaches character and decision-making skills that equip students to take charge of their futures. These lessons in Black American excellence are free and publicly available for all.

Born to poor sharecroppers in Texas, Bessie Coleman (1892-1926) was the first African American woman aviator, earning an international aviation license from the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale. Throughout her career as a daredevil stunt pilot in thrilling airshows, she consistently defied expectations and broke through racial and gender barriers to dazzle audiences and inspire future generations of Black American pilots, aviators, and astronauts. This lesson tells the story of Coleman’s life in the wider context of the “barnstorming” early days of flight and the rising opposition to racial segregation exemplified by newspapers like the Chicago Defender.

The Woodson Center's Black History and Excellence curriculum is based on the Woodson Principles and tells the stories of Black Americans whose tenacity and resilience enabled them to overcome adversity and make invaluable contributions to our country. It also teaches character and decision-making skills that equip students to take charge of their futures. These lessons in Black American excellence are free and publicly available for all.

This lesson provides an overview of the world's first African American female pilot, who overcame multiple barriers (racial, gender-based, historical, socioeconomic) in order to become a celebrated aviator and daredevil performer who thrilled both Black and White audiences. It is suitable for a lesson in history class, and would makean enriching addition to courses dealing with technical or scientific fields connected with aviation. The Woodson Center’s K-12 black history and character curriculum is based on the Woodson Principles and tells the stories of black Americans whose tenacity and resilience enabled them to overcome adversity and make invaluable contributions to our country. It also teaches character and decision-making skills that equip students to take charge of their futures. These lessons in black American excellence are free and publicly available for all.

In this activity, the students test the shelters they built in Lesson 3, Activity 1 for durability and water resistance.

In this lesson, students find their location on a map using Latitude and Longitudinal coordinates. They determine where they should go to be rescued and how best to get there.

This is a learning "adventure" (i.e. interactive learning) for body tissues created for an Anatomy & Physiology 1 course.  It can be modified for different concepts and is suitable for use in lecture, lab, or outside of class time as an independent assignment.

In this lesson, the students will summarize their experiences in the Amazon rainforest by developing and presenting a briefing for a T.V. evening news program.

In this activity, the students will develop a briefing for a T.V. evening news program that summarizes their experiences surviving in the Amazon rainforest. The students will have the opportunity to role play as interviewer and interviewee in presentations to the class.

In this activity, the students will investigate a variety of plants and animals common to the Amazon through research. They will determine the plant or animal characteristics that make them edible or useful for the trip and learn to categorize them by comparing similarities and/or differences.

In this lesson, the students will investigate what types of plants and insects they could eat to survive in the Amazon. They will research various plants and/or insects and identify characteristics that make them edible or useful for the trip. The students will create posters and present their findings to the class.

In this activity, the students will use wax paper shaped as leaves and kite string to build a shelter to protect them from the rain. The students will then test the shelters for durability and water resistance.

In this activity, students conduct an investigation to purify water. They engineer a method for cleaning water, discover the most effective way to filter water, and practice conducting a scientific experiment. Through this activity and its associated lesson, student teams follow the steps of the engineering design process related to water treatment, as done by practicing engineers, including constructing and testing their designs.

This article sets an historic context for Jules Verne's novel Captain Hatteras (1866), and presents an overview of day-to-day survival on the typical 19th century arctic voyage portrayed in this fictional account.

This is the first lesson in the Graphic Novel Study for "The Last Kids on Earth".

The Lost in the Amazon curricular unit is a series of minds-on and hands-on engineering activities based on an adventure scenario set in the Amazon rainforest in Brazil. Students imagine themselves to be a team of EnviroTech engineers returning to the U.S. from a conference in Brasilia, Brazil. When their plane crashes deep in the Amazon forest, they work in groups to overcome various obstacles in their quest to survive and reach the nearest city as quickly and safely as possible. Motivated by this adventurous theme, students discover, learn and apply the following: 1) classification of plants and insects; 2) general categorizing skills; 3) process skills: problem solving and critical thinking; 4) scientific testing and experimentation; 5) materials properties.

In this lesson, the students will build a shelter in order to protect themselves from the rain. After the shelters are built, the class will perform durability and water proof testing on the shelters.