America's Geographic Setting

1. What can geography teach us about the United States?

2. How did Native Americans adapt to different environments in North America?

3. How and why did Native American cultural regions differ?

4. What did explorers take to and from the Americas during the Age of Exploration?

5. What were the effects of European exploration in the Americas?

Colonial Times

1. What challenges faced the first English colonies?

2. How were the three colonial regions alike and different?

3. What was the impact of slavery on Africans?

4. What were key parts of life for Southern colonists in the 1700s?

The American Revolution

1. What British actions angered the colonists in the 1700s?

2. What were the arguments for and against colonial independence from Great Britain?

3. What are the main ideas in the Declaration of Independence?

4. How did the colonists win the American Revolution?

Civics and Economics in America

1. What are the key features of the U.S. Constitution?

2. What are the basic rights and freedoms of the American people?

3. What does it mean to be a citizen of the United States?

4. How did the Founding Fathers create the economy we use today?

Manifest Destiny to Today

1. How did the expansion of the United States affect people inside and outside the country?

2. What drew new settlers to the western part of the United States in the 1800s?

3. What factors helped drive apart the North and the South in the mid-1800s?

4. What factors contributed to the outcome of the Civil War?

5. How has life in the United States changed since industrialization?