Anthropology: Lesson Plans

Students will become familiar with fables and trickster tales from different cultural traditions and will see how stories change when transferred orally between generations and cultures.

This lesson focuses on one American Indian Nation, the Anishinabe, also known as the Ojibwe, Ojibway, or Chippewa Indians. Students will learn how to conduct a research project on different historical, geographical, and cultural aspects of this Native American group.

Australian Aboriginal art is one of the oldest continuing art traditions in the world. Much of the most important knowledge of aboriginal society was conveyed through different kinds of storytelling.

By studying paintings from the Cave of Lascaux and other caves in France, students will discover that pictures can be a way of communicating beliefs and ideas and can give us clues today about what life was like long ago.

Trace similar motifs in the artwork and folklore of India, Africa, the Maya, and Native Americans.

Focusing on the means used by the Incas to send messages over long distances, this lesson plan illustrates one of the many creative ways throughout history that humans have devised to meet a universal need -- that of cross-country communication. The lesson introduces students to the Inca Empire, which extended from northern Ecuador to central Chile and from the Andes to the west coast of South America between 1200 and 1535 AD.

This lesson introduces students to Egyptian pyramids and to artifacts and archaeology in general. Through a discussion of the size, scale, and purpose of pyramids, students learn how these structures tell audiences of today about the peoples of ancient Egypt. An extension lesson allows students to consider what messages modern monuments provide about present-day cultures.

Students will examine the art and history of ancient Egypt through the oldest writing system in the world. This lesson teaches students how to understand and write Egyptian hieroglyphs.

This lesson introduces students to Egyptian art, culture, and history through the ancient tomb paintings and mythological figures of the Book of the Dead.

Trace the elements of myth and history in the world of the Round Table.
Date Revised: 06/22/06

The following lesson introduces children to folk tales through a literary approach that emphasizes genre categories and definitions. In this unit, students will become familiar with fables and trickster tales from different cultural traditions and will see how stories change when transferred orally between generations and cultures.

Learn how writer Zora Neale Hurston incorporated and transformed black folklife in her novel Their Eyes Were Watching God. By exploring Hurston’s own life history and collection methods, listening to her WPA recordings of folksongs and folktales, and comparing transcribed folk narrative texts with the plot and themes of the novel, students will learn about the crucial role of oral folklore in Hurston’s written work.

The study of humans and animals in cooperation and conflict within folktales from different cultures lends itself to a simple lesson on ecology and endangered species to help students can make connections between the relationships between human beings and animals in folklore and the relationship between people and the environment in our world.

Through examining several examples of tales from around the world that focus on the relationship between people and animals, students will learn about humans living in cooperation with the land and sea and with the beasts that inhabit them. This lesson plan addresses various helpful animal tale types, such as animal nurses who rear great heroes after they have been abandoned as infants, and beasts that lend supernatural aid to humans.

Find out what it might feel like to grow up in an Asian, African, or Latin American country.

Take a virtual field trip to the ruins of Pompeii to learn about everyday life in Roman times.

In this French language lesson, elementary-school students learn about the ways that early humans communicated through art by exploring cave paintings of France and creating their own wall artwork.

Leonardo da Vinci—one of history’s most imaginative geniuses—was certainly born at the right time and in the right place. In this lesson plan, the students will explore Leonardo da Vinci and the age in which he lived and consider the meaning of the Greek quotation, “Man is the measure of all things” and why it particularly applies to the Renaissance and to Leonardo.

During the Middle Ages, most people in Europe spent their entire lives in the village where they were born. But in the 13th century, a young Italian named Marco Polo traveled all the way to China! In this lesson, students will learn about the remarkable travels of Marco Polo.

Students examine pictures of household objects from the late 20th century, gather historical information about them from older family members, and then create an in-class exhibit of historical objects from their own homes.

This lesson discusses the differences between common representations of Native Americans within the U.S. and a more differentiated view of historical and contemporary cultures of five American Indian tribes living in different geographical areas. Students will learn about customs and traditions such as housing, agriculture, and ceremonial dress for the Tlingit, Dinè, Lakota, Muscogee, and Iroquois peoples.

In White Fang, Jack London sought to trace the “development of domesticity, faithfulness, love, morality, and all the amenities and virtues.” In this lesson, students explore images from the Klondike and read White Fang closely to learn how to define and differentiate the terms “nature” and “culture."

Students study the interaction between environment and culture as they learn about three vastly different Native groups in a game-like activity that uses vintage photographs, traditional stories, photos of artifacts, and recipes.

In this lesson, students will learn about the lifestyle of the wealthy elite and then expand their view of medieval society by exploring the lives of the peasants, craftsmen, and monks.

In this curriculum unit, students will become Marco Polo adventurers, following his route to and from China in order to learn about the geography, local products, culture, and fascinating sites of those regions.

Lesson 1: On the Road with Marco Polo: A Boy in 13th Century Venice
Lesson 2: On the Road with Marco Polo: From Venice to Hormuz
Lesson 3: On the Road with Marco Polo: From Hormuz to Kashgar
Lesson 4: On the Road with Marco Polo: Crossing the Deserts of China
Lesson 5: On the Road with Marco Polo: Marco Polo in China
Lesson 6: On the Road with Marco Polo: Sea Voyage to India
Lesson 7: On the Road with Marco Polo: From Hormuz to Venice
Lesson 8: On the Road with Marco Polo: Homecoming

In this lesson, students will discover how historical events gradually merged with fantasy to create the colorful tales we enjoy today. This Lesson Plan revised: 12/30/2005

The Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan was the hub of a rich civilization that dominated the region of modern-day Mexico at the time the Spanish forces arrived. In this lesson, students will learn about the history and culture of the Aztecs and discover why their civilization came to an abrupt end.

Students electronically recover and analyze artifacts from historic archeological sites in order to discover what these artifacts reveal about the people who used them.

This lesson compares the cultures and languages of the Tlingit, Lakota, and Cherokee American Indian tribes, and helps students learn the importance of preserving a group's traditions.

Curriculum Unit overview. For many people, Timbuktu is a metaphor for the mysterious, the remote, or the unobtainable. But the Malian city of Timbuktu was, in fact, once a thriving center of commerce and intellectual activity. In the lessons of this curriculum unit, students will learn about the geography of Mali and the early trade networks that flourished there.

Lesson 1: Trekking to Timbuktu: The Geography of Mali — Student Version
Lesson 2: Trekking to Timbuktu: Trade in Ancient West Africa — Student Version
Lesson 3: Trekking to Timbuktu: Timbuktu: A Center of Trade — Student Version
Lesson 4: Trekking to Timbuktu: Mansa Musa Takes a Trip — Student Version
Lesson 5: Trekking to Timbuktu: Timbuktu's Golden Age of Scholarship — Student Version
Lesson 6: Trekking to Timbuktu: The Search for Timbuktu — Student Version
Lesson 7: Trekking to Timbuktu: Restoring the Past — Student Version
Lesson 8: Trekking to Timbuktu: Making The Pitch to Globe Trekker — Student Version

Curriculum Unit overview. For many people, Timbuktu is a metaphor for the mysterious, the remote, or the unobtainable. But the Malian city of Timbuktu was, in fact, once a thriving center of commerce and intellectual activity.

In the lessons of this curriculum unit, students will learn about the geography of Mali and the early trade networks that flourished there. They will study how the spread of Islam influenced the cultures and economies along the Niger River. They will find out about the three kingdoms that evolved in ancient and medieval West Africa. They will discover how Timbuktu rose from a simple watering place to the most important city in Islamic West Africa. And they will find out what is being done today to protect the city’s antiquities

Lesson 1: Trekking to Timbuktu: The Geography of Mali —Teacher Version
Lesson 2: Trekking to Timbuktu: Trade in Ancient West Africa — Teacher Version
Lesson 3: Trekking to Timbuktu: Timbuktu: A Center of Trade — Teacher Version
Lesson 4: Trekking to Timbuktu: Mansa Musa Takes a Trip — Teacher Version
Lesson 5: Trekking to Timbuktu: Timbuktu's Golden Age of Scholarship — Teacher Version
Lesson 6: Trekking to Timbuktu: The Search for Timbuktu — Teacher Version
Lesson 7: Trekking to Timbuktu: Restoring the Past — Teacher Version
Lesson 8: Trekking to Timbuktu: Assessment of Lessons 1-7 — Teacher Version

Explore the cultural significance of masks by investigating the role they play in ceremonies and on special occasions in societies from widely separated regions of the world.

Students will look closely at the design, construction and materials of at least one Native American house and one house built by European settlers to understand why houses are designed the way they are.

In this curriculum unit, students will learn about the origins of four major types of British surnames. They will consult lists to discover the meanings of specific names and later demonstrate their knowledge of surnames through various group activities. They will then compare the origins of British to certain types of non-British surnames. In a final activity, the students will research the origins and meanings of their own family names.

Lesson 1: What’s In A Name? How Did Surnames Come to Be?
Lesson 2: What’s In A Name? British Surnames Derived from Places
Lesson 3: What’s In A Name? British Surnames Derived from Occupations or Professions
Lesson 4: What’s In A Name? Non-British Surnames