Problem-Based Learning units for the high-school U.S. history course (§113.41) — also suited to AP U.S. History, dual-credit, and early-college. Each unit moves students from building knowledge (surface) to organizing it (deep) to solving a real, ill-structured problem as a stakeholder (transfer).
Vocabulary, key facts, jigsaw reading, map & source work.
Concept maps, primary sources, points of view, argument.
Meet the problem, take a role, investigate, propose a solution, debrief.
It is 1903. Students become stakeholders — President Roosevelt, a Colombian official, a Panamanian nationalist, a West Indian laborer, a naval-power advocate — and work the question of whether, how, and on whose terms the United States should build a canal across the isthmus. Imperialism, sovereignty, and the human cost of a world power's ambition. 5–8 class periods.
Open the unit → U.S. History · §113.41It is 1906 and industrial America is booming — and breaking. Students become a muckraker, a factory owner, a labor organizer, a reformer, an immigrant worker, and a worried consumer, and weigh whether — and how far — government should regulate business and protect people. 5–8 class periods.
Open the unit → U.S. History · §113.41The Depression grinds on. Students become FDR, an unemployed worker, a business owner, a Supreme Court justice, a Black sharecropper, and a critic who says it doesn't go far enough — and decide how much responsibility the federal government should take for the economy and its citizens. 5–8 class periods.
Open the unit → U.S. History · §113.41October 1962: Soviet nuclear missiles are 90 miles from Florida. Students become Kennedy, a hawkish general, a diplomat, RFK, and Soviet and Cuban voices, and work the hardest decision of the Cold War — how to respond without ending the world. 5–8 class periods.
Open the unit → U.S. History · §113.41Spring 1963 in Birmingham. When the law itself is unjust, how should the movement push for change? Students become Dr. King, a student activist, a more militant voice, a white moderate, a segregationist official, and a federal official — and weigh strategy, risk, and justice. 5–8 class periods.
Open the unit →| TEKS SE | What it covers |
|---|---|
| (c)(4)(A–B) | The emergence of the U.S. as a world power (1898–1920): the Spanish-American War, U.S. expansionism, Alfred Thayer Mahan, and Theodore Roosevelt; evaluate American expansionism. |
| (c)(12) | Analyze the impact of physical and human geographic factors on major events, including the Panama Canal. |
| (c)(28)(A–F) | Analyze primary and secondary sources; evaluate sources for validity, credibility, and bias; formulate and communicate a claim supported by evidence. |
| (c)(29) | Communicate in written, oral, and visual forms; engage in civil discourse about topics with multiple perspectives. |
| (c)(31)(B) | Use the problem-solving and decision-making process: identify a problem, gather information, list and consider options, weigh advantages and disadvantages, choose and implement a solution, and evaluate its effectiveness. |
🧑🏫 Teacher supports: UDL · ELPS · PBL facilitation guide · Activity → TEKS correlation