Minnesota: Investigating a Place

This teacher's guide uses stamps, photographs, paintings, objects, videos, and music to explore the history and culture of Minnesota, Land of 10,000 Lakes. In the classroom, these resources can be used by students to investigate two essential questions: How do you define Minnesota as a place? What does it mean to be a Minnesotan? 

Supporting questions and activity implementation ideas are located under this collection's Information (i) button.

"Place" here refers to the idea of historic place. Historic places can take many forms, from the districts within a city, landscapes, to states; from prison camps, town squares, train stations, to cemeteries. "Each has a story to tell; each serves as a primary document in the service of inquiry; each comprises a multi-disciplinary resource to understand a time, and a place, and a group of people."

Source: http://nps.gov/nr/twhp/prof_dev_project/methodsart...

SUPPORTING QUESTIONS
To guide student inquiry into the essential questions: 

1. How do these objects relate to each other? 
2. What objects/people/places are missing that you think are important in defining Minnesota as a place? 
3. What sub-themes can you identify within this collection of resources? 
4.  How do you define Minnesota in terms of its environmental characteristics? 
5.  Has the definition of being a Minnesotan changed over time?

ACTIVITY IDEAS
Ask students to investigate collection in small groups to answer the two essential questions. Use the supporting questions to guide their inquiry into the essential questions - answering these questions will give students a knowledge and evidence base from which to answer the essential questions.

To further the activity, students may choose one resource to investigate in depth and either write an essay or create a collection of their own around it. Students may choose two or more resources to compare in their exploration of how one defines Minnesota and being a Minnesotan.