Would you like to add a lesson plan or site to the LA History Archive? E-mail your suggestion to thesocalstudio@gmail.com.

This site is operated by Donald Austin to promote appreciation for prehistoric Native American pictographs and petroglyphs in an effort to protect these ancient sites from destruction. This site contains hundreds of images captioned rock art pages of mostly lesser known petroglyph and pictograph sites in the California Deserts and adjacent Southwest. http://www.petroglyphs.us/

California Indian Basketry, Citizenship, Classroom Archaeology, “Foreign” Miners, Freedom’s Opportunity, The Fur Trade, Iconic Figures of the American West, The Mini-Museum, Northwest Coast Indians: Masks, Northwest Coast Indians: Spring and Summer Salmon, Northwest Coast Indians: Winter Celebrations Potlatch, The See Family, Trade Between East and West, Where in the World Am I? http://theautry.org/education/lesson-plans

This website is for the Labor in the Schools Committee from the California Federation of Teachers. The CFT Labor In The Schools Committee was formed to assist teachers in reaching students with information about the history and current place of the labor movement in American democracy. The members of the committee are classroom teachers as well as faculty from community college and university labor studies programs. The committee meets several times a year to plan, develop and evaluate various programs. These include a clearinghouse of curricular materials and labor education activities around the state; development of lesson plans on labor across all subject matter areas and grade levels; workshops for teachers and interested trade unionists to give them access to these materials and tips on teaching about labor; and overseeing work on two long-term projects: Golden Lands, Working Hands, and the Collective Bargaining Education Project. http://www.cft.org/about/comm/labor/

This is a powerful gateway to the different collections of the California State Archives including photography, maps and oral histories. It has links to each city website and its respective resources for history. http://www.learncalifornia.org/

This project includes several databases. The CNP catalog is the most comprehensive source of information about California newspapers. It details newspaper titles and holdings from more than 1,400 libraries, museums, historical societies and publishers' offices throughout the state. The catalog contains records for over 14,400 U.S. newspaper titles held in California repositories; close to 9,000 of these newspapers were or are published in California. http://cnp.ucr.edu/

This website includes different world timelines to compare global events as well as online historical texts (though most do not include California). Most important, this site includes a tutorial on how to make timelines. http://din-timelines.com/

Offering documents to assist in ancestral research including: Familia’s Family Tree, Biographic Profile, Family Group Record, and Documentation Record. You may download these pdf document file for your convenience. http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~cafara/Documents.html

Lesson plans ranging from Performing Arts in Art, Art & Language Arts: Ideas for the Classroom, Historical Witness, Social Messaging, Who's Afraid of Contemporary Art? When Impressionism Was a Dirty Word, Working with Sculpture, Gods, Heroes and Monsters: Mythology in European Art, Art & Science: A Curriculum for K–12 Teachers, Exploring Photographs, Visualizing Devotion, Artful Women, Landscapes, Classical to Modern: Lessons and Ideas for Discussion, Telling Stories in Art, Scenes from the Headlines: Lessons and Ideas for Discussion, Looking and Learning in the Art Museum (Grades K–5), Looking and Learning in the Art Museum (Grades 6–12), Language through Art: An ESL Enrichment Curriculum (Intermediate Level), Language through Art: An ESL Enrichment Curriculum (Intermediate/Advanced Level) http://www.getty.edu/education/teachers/classroom_resources/index.html

Strike a Beat: Be a Taiko Drummer, Kokeshi World: Create your kokeshi, Kamishibai Theatre, Members Page, Homework Help http://www.janm.org/janmkids/

This site is maintained by the Juaneno Band of Indians and includes essays and information on culture, history, and includes photographs. http://www.juaneno.com/

Lesson plans focused on Wilshire but suggest how to use other neighborhoods and buildings as part of the classroom curriculum. Topics include: Mapping Wilshire, Oil in Los Angeles, The Westlake Theatre, The Elks Club/Park Plaza Hotel, St. Basil’s Catholic Church and Wilshire Boulevard Temple, The Ambassador Hotel, and Adaptive Reuse to name a few. http://www.curatingthecity.org/teach.jsp

The Library of Congress This site includes documents from the Library of Congress related to early California history. http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/cbhtml/cbintro.html

“The primary goal of this activity is to give students the genuine experience of oral history in order to appreciate the process of historiography. We identified immigrants in our community who reflect the ethnic diversity of our student body, enabling students to compare and contrast the stories of these contemporary immigrants with those researched in the thirties reflected in American Life Histories, 1936-1940 and other American Memory collections. Students engage in visual and information literacy exercises to gain an understanding of how to identify and interpret primary historical sources. Further background on the project and its context in our eighth grade history course can be obtained by reading this letter to parents.” http://memory.loc.gov/learn/lessons/97/oh1/ammem.html

A multimedia history of the Tongva Civilization created by high school students. A great model of a group project for earlier grades as well as relevant information.
http://www.lausd.k12.ca.us/Verdugo_HS/classes/multimedia/intro.html

This website is maintained by the Mission San Juan Capistrano and includes information on visiting the site, educator resources, and summary information. Example lesson plan: “The Acjachemen Nation: Orange County’s First Inhabitants.” http://missionsjc.com/preservation/history.php http://www.missionsjc.com/teachers/lessons.php

Having a few simple activities for your students to do in the Museum is a great way to provide focus. They support State Standards, require no advance preparation or special materials, can be used by teachers and chaperones, and they encourage observation and conversation! http://www.nhm.org/site/for-teachers/lessons-and-activities/teachable-moments

A more in-depth approach, these lessons are built around grade-specific essential questions and offer a sequence of pre, during, and post-field trip activities. By exploring these lessons, you can find ways to integrate your field trip into your classroom curriculum, focus on grade specific essential questions, support State Standards, activate student prior knowledge, engage minds and expand thinking. http://www.nhm.org/site/for-teachers/lessons-and-activities/expanding-experiences

Lesson Plans related to: Tidepools, Travel Brochures, Paleontology, Elephant Seals, Government, Gold Rush, and Redwood Ecology. Units of study have “Target Grade Levels” and meet specific content standards. http://ports.parks.ca.gov/?page_id=23007

PBS maintains a web site with many resources that are relevant to studying Southern California history. Below are a few examples: http://www.pbs.org “The American Experience” (includes several projects) http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/ “By the People: Election 2004. Savvy Voter.” http://www.pbs.org/elections/savvyvoter.html “Driven to Despair.” http://www.pbs.org/wnet/blueprintamerica/reports/driven-to-despair/
“Edens Lost & Found.”
http://www.pbs.org/opb/edenslostandfound/la_01.html “New Perspectives on the West.” http://www.pbs.org/weta/thewest/ Zoot Suit Riots http://www.pbs.org/teachers/connect/resources/1217/preview/

These two websites by Algis Ratnikas whose bio may be found at http://timelines.ws/BIO.HTML are a wealth of data beginning with the Big Bang theory and ending in the recent past. www.timelines.ws & http://timelinesdb.com/

This free online workbook includes detailed descriptions of petroglyphs across Southern California as well as provides beautiful 4 color photographs, maps and an in-depth lesson plan suitable for those in the sixth grade. http://www.sinay.com/rockart/rock.pdf

This website includes information on history, spiritual beliefs, important minerals and plants and information on the Pechanga Band of Luiseno Indians. http://www.pechanga-nsn.gov/page?pageId=1

This online presentation includes information on Riverside’s Sherman Indian High School and its cemetery. It is easy to read and includes historic images. Sherman Indian High School was derived from the Perris Indian School which was the first off reservation Indian Boarding School in the state of California...The Sherman Museum is housed in the Sherman Indian High School's administration building, the current school's only original architecture. This online photo gallery documents the history of the Sherman Indian Museum and gives one an idea of the photographic holdings available at this museum. The Names of Sherman Project is also worth exploring as it is the Museum’s attempt to track the names of the school’s past students. www.shermanindianmuseum.org/cemetery1.htm

A history of California’s Chumash Indians maintained and written by Dr. Francis Steen. The site also includes excerpted essays by Brian Fagan, The Chumash, Richard Stephen Street, The First Farmworkers, Carey McWilliams, The Indian in the Closet. http://cogweb.ucla.edu/Chumash/

Links to Asian American sites in Riverside, notable Asian Americans in Riverside, Asian American Religious Sites as well as a bibliography related to Asian American imprint on the Riverside cultural landscape. http://aar.ucr.edu/

This timeline of Asian American history begins at 1910. It is created by US Asians and J. Lee as a way to produce more accurate representations of Asian Americans in the media. http://us_asians.tripod.com/timeline-1910.html