Activities & Lesson Plans

Make a Constitution

The “Make a Constitution” activity transforms each of your students into a fledgling nation-state. Students begin by creating their own countries—complete with flags! Using interactive flowcharts, students make real choices about their government’s structure and craft their country’s constitution.

Students must then test their carefully crafted constitutions against real world scenarios. Can their constitutions survive early crises of government? There’s only one way to find out! Download the complete “Make a Constitution” activity and watch your students transform from middle school students into civic leaders.

Ohio Companies Participate in WWI

Make connections between Ohio’s industrialization and World War I, including immigration and the role of corporations in the war effort!

This lesson plan was written by Paul LaRue. A retired thirty-year high school social studies teacher, Paul has received numerous state and national teaching awards. He serves as a member of the Ohio World War I Centennial Committee.

Ohio Village Virtual Experience

Ohio Village Virtual Field Trip is an interactive online experience that explores life during the late 1800s and early 1900s.  ​Through this virtual field trip students help different Ohio Village characters achieve their mission.  Characters in the experience represent people of different backgrounds and lived experiences of the time.

Ohio Women Vote

Get a collection of primary sources and draw your own conclusions about the history of the Women’s Suffrage movement in Ohio and the United States.

Ohio Women Vote: 100 Years of Change

In this guide you will find information, documents, images and photos that will help you better understand the Women’s Suffrage movement and the role Ohio women played in securing women’s voting rights.

Picture This: WWI

Learn more about World War I by doing what historians do –analyzing visual media! Understand the importance of visual culture as a primary source. This recorded program, uses World War I era photographs, posters and cartoons to practice the skills required to analyze and interpret images. If you want to dig a little deeper, check out this lesson.

This resource was created by staff of the Ohio History Connection for Little Stories of the Great War: Ohioans in World War I, funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities. Resources are provided for free and are available for non-commercial use and reuse with attribution to the Ohio History Connection.

Planting a Victory Garden

This is a four-part series of activities featured on our blog Resource Roundup? that guides students through the process of creating a victory garden from research to planning and planting!

Prehistoric Storytime

Join us for Prehistoric Storytime and learn about some BIG mammals that lived a LONG time ago. Want to learn more? Head over to this website for an additional book recommendation, as well as web-based activities and puzzles on prehistoric animals. Check out this resource on discovering prehistoric humans through pictures, and this resource that tries to answer the question “How did the Flintstones really live?”

PSA Project

Create a community of engaged learners by asking students to do something radical: translate 200-year-old hot takes into modern PSAs. Students explore reform movements of the 19th century by analyzing primary source newspaper articles from “The Philanthropist,” an Ohio newspaper from 1818. They’ll identify key social reform issues including abolition, temperance, capital punishment, and religious charity, then create Public Service Announcements to demonstrate their understanding of how reformers mobilized for change during the Age of Reform.

Scientific Discoveries of the Victorian Era

Learn about some of the many scientific advancements of the 19th century. When you’re done, check out this video that shows you a fun experiment you can do at home with electromagnetism. If you want to dive deeper into this topic, take a look at this activity, build a wiggle bot, make electric dough or build a battery!