Activity 1: Skills and Best Practices

Using Drawings and Photographs to Teach Social Studies

The best way to teach social studies is take students to the sites you are talking about. For example, no one can truly say they understand the vastness and uniqueness of Alaska until they have visited Alaska. However, since this is not practical for most of our students, the use of the pictures is a necessary substitute. Fortunately, the Internet has become a wonderful source of graphic material for most of the units we teach.

Using Pictures in Lessons:

Using Timelines to Teach Social Studies

The site below provides a unique way of using a time line to make comparisons. For example, the following themes in world history are compared from 1900 to the Present to illustrate the sweeping changes that have occurred since 1900.
http://www.time.com/time/time100/timewarp/timewarp.html#

By making quick comparisons between 1900 and today, students can see the breadth of change over time. In addition, students can take a snapshot of significant people and events that impacted the last 100 years. For example, they can analyze:

Leaders and revolutionaries
Artists and entertainers
Builders and titans
Scientists and thinkers
Heroes and icons
The person of the century