<p>Railroads started well before 1869, but it was not until that year that the nation was bound together by a commitment to build the first transcontinental system. On May 10, 1869, the driving of a golden spike, signaled the ceremonial end to a process that had been going on for 6 years of construction, engineering, and human toil. Two companies, one starting in Omaha, Nebraska and the other in Sacramento, California competed to lay track towards each other to join the Central Pacific and Union Pacific Railroads. Their reward for each mile was government money and lots of it. By the time that they met at Promontory Summit, Utah, vast sums of money and untold human labor and sacrifice had been expended on this incredible technical endeavor. A single track united the continent's Wester and Eastern regions. Travel from East to West used to take months by wagon train, could now be measured in mere days. This collection utilizes Primary Source student review strategies from the Library of Congress' <a href="http://www.loc.gov/teachers/usingprimarysources/guides.html" target="_blank">Primary Source Analysis Tools</a>. </p>

<p>In lessons in this issue of <em>Smithsonian in Your Classroom, </em>portraits of Lincoln introduce a study of the Civil War. An analysis of the portraits—including the famous “cracked-plate" photograph, two plaster “life masks," and an eyewitness drawing of Lincoln's arrival in the enemy capital of Richmond, Virginia—leads to an analysis of the times.</p> <p>Click on the PDF icons to download the issue and larger images of the portraits.</p>

<p>This collection is for an activity with California State Parks leadership teams. Teams will use a somewhat random series of resources found within this Smithsonian collection to see if they can create an educational theme/context using at least 3-5 of the resources. #CalParks</p>

<p>Take this collection, and make it your own by finding at least 5-10 more "space" objects and artifacts. </p>

<p>Note to Students: You are about to write an essay that asks you to think about connections between your own experiences and those described by the Transcendentalist authors we've studied in this unit. Before you start your essay, you'll embark on an "Exploring Connections" activity designed to help you think about how Transcendentalist ideas and principles still influence American culture today. You'll explore a series of contemporary "artifacts"--comic strips, songs, videos, and poems--and discuss the ways they seem to be influenced by (or connected to) Transcendentalist ideas, values, and beliefs.</p>

<p>A perspective on how and why savagery and disorder take over the boys in our story, and the warning author William Golding wanted to deliver through this tale to the rest of the world.</p>

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<p>Let's take a journey to see what the Smithsonian has for you and your students. We will use this as a FRIENDLY challenge, and as a way to explore the types of diverse resources and features found in the Learning Lab.</p>

A collection of locks and keys from various times and cultures.

<p>This Learning Collection was developed to guide students in exploring the evolution of space suit design as a lead-in to NASA's recent Space Suit Design challenge. This is also being used as an example to showcase some of the features Smithsonian has added to their Learning Lab to allow educators the tools necessary to use open Smithsonian resources along with external materials to create digital learning experiences. <br /></p><p><br /></p>