Brief Description Objectives Materials and Resources Activity Description Internet Resources

• Grade level:Elementary, High School

• Subject Area: Social Studies, Language Arts

Brief Description

    After students complete their oral histories, they will conduct secondary source research using the internet and library resources to learn more about the backgrounds of their family's cultural and ethnic heritages. Students can work together in research groups that have common ethnic/cultural areas.
Objectives

    Given internet and library resources students will:

• develop research skills with both library and internet resources.
• learn more about their own and other's cultural and ethnic heritage.

Materials and Resources Needed

    In developing our lessons and activities, we made some assumptions about the hardware and software that would be available in the classroom for teachers who visit the LETSNet website. We assume that teachers using our Internet-based lessons or activities have a computer (PC or Macintosh) with the necessary hardware components (mouse, keyboard, and monitor) as well as software (operating system, TCP/IP software, networking or dial-up software, e-mail and a World Wide Web client program, preferably Netscape, but perhaps Mosaic or Lynx). In the section below, we specify any "special" hardware or software requirements for a lesson or activity - over and above those described above - as well as our sense of the Internet access required to do the activity.

1. Internet access: A medium to high speed connection and our list of sites on immigration and Ellis Island from Lesson 2.

Activity Description

• Organize the students into research groups to explore the web.

• Give students the bookmarks contained in our ethnic/immigration web sites list and have them explore several of the sites letting them know that they are expected to gather information on their own cultural background.

• Have students use library resources to gather information.

Internet Resources

• The Ethnic Heritage Council
  [http://www.eskimo.com/~millerd/ehc/]
  A non-profit organization with a board of directors that includes African-American, Native-American, Asian-American, Latin-American, and European-American members. This site has events, services, publications, people, etc.

• Ethnic, Religious, and National Web Index
  [http://www.dcn.davis.ca.us/~feefhs/ethnic.html]
  A complete listing of all known ethnic organizations in 14 countries.

• Latino Web - Education and History
  [http://www.latinoweb.com/favision/history.html]
  A site with extensive links to other websites on Hispanic and Chicano history and culture.

• Native Web
  [http://web.maxwell.syr.edu/nativeweb/]
  A site with lot of information on Native Americans, including historical material, news, and literature.

• Urban Education Resources
  [http://eric-web.tc.columbia.edu/home_files/other_resources.html]
  A listing of sites that focus on issues of diversity and ethnic and racial minorities.

• Yahoo Immigration Information
  [http://beta.yahoo.com/Government/Law/Immigration/U_S__Immigration_Info/]

• U.S. Immigration Resources
  [http://www.contact.org/usimm.htm]
  Links to sites with information on the technical aspects of immigration.

• Basic Immigration Resources
  [http://www.autonomy.com/immig.htm]
  A site with listings of places with information on technical and historical aspects of immigration.

Back to Virutal Ellis Island Museum Unit Lesson Plans