GIS Lessons
As part of The Virginia Experiment Teaching American History (TAH) grant, 10 teaching fellows from five central Virginia school divisions spent the 2007–2008 school year conducting authentic historical research, creating datasets, and developing ready-to-use classroom activities that use GIS to teach United States history. The lessons below include lessons created to introduce the teachers to using GIS in the History classroom as well as the lessons they researched and designed. If you would like more information on how to use these in your classroom or school division please contact Chris Bunin.
Civil War Battles of Virginia and Virginia Sharecropping Virginia’s Civil War Battles (ArcGIS)
This lesson will examine the different battles of the Civil War that were fought in Virginia to allow students the opportunity to see patterns related to the strategies of both the Union and Confederacy. They will use GIS technology to track change over time in Virginia during the Civil War. Virginia Sharecropping (ArcGIS)
This lesson will have students examine the rate of sharecropping and tenant farming in Virginia during the Reconstruction era compared to the pre-Civil War slavery era. They will discover, based on population statistics, who typically farmed land they did not own and why.
US History/Virginia Studies / Jeremy Newcomb / Orange County Public Schools
Virginia’s Civil War Battles (zip file)
Mapping the Campaign for President
Students will study the primaries/caucus campaigns of the major candidates for both the Republican and Democrat parties during the 2008 Primaries. They will compare and contrast strategies and then relate them to the electoral college.
US History/Civics / Tamie Campbell / Madison County Public Schools
Mapping the Campaign For President (zip file)
Mapping the Civil War
This is a two part activity that can be used with ArcMap or AEJEE. In activity 1 students build an interactive Civil War map project in ArcMap. Skills covered include basic symbology, query by attribute, creating new layers from existing layers’ basic map layout, and the export to .lyr and .pdf function. In activity two students students use ArcMap or AEJJE to visualize and analyze the chronology of the Civil War.
Chris Bunin / TAH Director of Teaching Fellows
Querying the Reach of Jim Crow
This GIS lesson is designed to explore the reach of Jim Crow laws and their impact on the evolution of American history. The interplay of GIS and the shapefile demonstrate the complexity of Jim Crow and affords students the opportunity to analyze, reflect, and question this dynamic era of American history.
US History / Scott Mace
Querying the Reach of Jim Crow (zip file)
Slavery in Virginia (AEJEE or ArcGIS)
For this activity students learn how to create two thematic maps depicting slavery in Virginia in 1810 and 1860. Thematic mapping is useful for helping students see tabular information (population, demographics, voting patterns, etc.) across space.
US History / Chris Bunin / TAH Director of Teaching Fellows
Slavery in Virginia (zip file)
The Oregon Trail: GIS Simulation (AEJEE)
This lesson should come after an introduction lesson to the motivations of westward expansion (specifically Overland Trail emigration). For best results, students should have been introduced to GIS technology (ArcMap or ArcExplorer) prior to this lesson. By completing this activity the student will know: "jumping-off cities" geographic features along the trail; the distance traveled by Oregon Trail emigrants. The student will be able to: use a GIS map to simulate the journey of an Oregon Trail emigrant analyze and interpret digital images; write historically accurate journal entries from the perspective of an Oregon Trail emigrant.
US History / Teresa Goodin / Charlottesville City Schools
Why Yorktown? The Role of Nathanael Greene in the Revolutionary War
These lessons investigate the importance of the role geography played in the American Revolutionary War. Students will investigate the location of battles relative to time and region, the role of port cities, and how Nathanael Greene used his knowledge of the land to weaken Cornwallis’s Army without winning a major battle.
History, Revolutionary War (United States I), grades 4 – 6; Geography (United States, 13 colonies), grades 4 – 6
Donna Shifflett / Greene County Public Schools
Winning Virginia
Students will act as campaign strategists in Virginia deciding which counties are the cities are the best ones to set up campaign offices. Students will look at a variety of variables including competitiveness, population size, race, median age, and gender to make their determinations. Students will then create a campaign strategy based on their maps and their analysis. This assignment is part of a larger assignment called “Selling the Candidate” in which students are acting as the campaign staff for either a presidential, senatorial, or congressional candidate in the state of Virginia.
US History/US Government / John Hobson / Albemarle County Public Schools
World War II Alliances
In this project students will explore a world map that illustrates the involvement of countries in alliances during WWII. Using ArcGis or Adobe Acrobat the students will explore how the WWII alliances changed over time from 1932-1945.
US History / Stephanie Hammer / Greene County Public Schools