This is a webpage written by high school teachers for those who teach world history and want to find online content as well as technology that you can use in the classroom.
Here is a stunning documentary about the increasing tension between the United States and China, especially in the South China Sea, developed by journalist, John Pilger. Called the Coming War on China, it was trashed by conservatives because the film is so critical of the United States.
Here's what I learned in the first ten minutes.
As the Chinese expand onto islands in the South Sea China, they see American destroyers and bases surrounding them.
And in 1946, Americans exploded a hydrogen bomb over the Bikini Atoll near the Marshal Islands to see how animals and people react to the blast.
A global guide to the first world war from the Guardian. This is short, each of the seven chapters is about three minutes. It does a particularly good job of showing the global nature of the war through the participation of the colonies.
Over the Top, a terrific web module that tells the story of Canadians who fought in the trench in the war. You have to make decisions throughout the simulation.
Here's a great curriculum project called "Our Shared Past in the Mediterranean." It contains lesson modules on the Mediterranean in different time periods.
The Memet Ali lesson is part of module five which covers reform and social change in the Mediterranean between 1798-1914.
Another lesson in that module compares the Declaration of Gulhane and the Declaration of the Rights of Man. (The Gulhane Proclamation created the Tanzimat Reforms in the Ottoman Empire)
Module six includes a lesson on the Marshall Plan and Italy. Another 20th century lesson examines the impact of the quest for energy on the environment.
Our Shared Past is a "collaborative grants program." Curriculum developers include Craig Perrier, High School Social Studies Specialist for Fairfax County Public Schools, and Susan Douglas from Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service.
Here the School of Life reviews Karl Marx's theory of communism.
While Marx's ideas have been used by dictators like Stalin and Mao, the host notes that Marx's diagnosis of capitalism "helps us navigate towards a more promising future."
The East Asian Resource Center offers a four-day summer development program at the University of Washington at Settle in July.
The topic fits themes in both the World History AP World History.
The course will focus on the the three Chinese teachings--Daoism, Confucianism, and Buddhism. It will also focus on the development of Shintoism in Japan.
The University will provide dormitory housing, meal allowance and a partial travel stipend of up to $300 for a limited number of out-of-town participants.
DETAILS
July 24 – 28, 2017
8:30 a.m.-3:30 p.m.
(Monday-Thursday)
8:30 a.m.-12:30 p.m (Friday)
The University of Washington in Seattle
Priority application deadline: 11:59 pm PST on March 31, 2017
MIT has a terrific website called Visualizing Cultures with an image driven curricula about Asia. Their units on Japan and China are great.
For example, we are studying the Meiji Restoration in AP World. MIT has a unit called "Throwing off Asia." It includes a section called Technology and Industry with a series of woodblock prints that shows different aspects of industrialization. I copied some for students to review and note the different ways in which the woodblocks reflect industrialization and modernization.
Another unit called Black Ships and Samurai shows the different ways the Japanese saw the invading Westerners when Commodore Perry sailed into Tokyo Bay. It includes a chart for analyzing the images.
Here are some very short clips that help explain it.
The first is a basic overview from Khan academy and runs about four minutes.
The second clip explains the three types of kami, or gods. These include ancestors, spirits, and souls of great people, all of whom coexist with us in the natural world.
The third clip explains the importance of the torii gate and the Shinto shrine. And finally, a professor explains the great myth of the Japanese sun god, Amaterasu who is the daughter of Izanami and Izanagi who made their daughter ruler of the sky.
Teaching Imperialism? Here, Cecil Rhodes discovers a diamond mine in South Africa that will eventually become De Beers, the world's largest diamond company.
The five-minute clip starts about six minutes in the video and comes from the PBS series, Queen Victoria's Empire.