Primary Source Learning: Science & Technology
Citizen U lessons integrating science, technology and civics
- Carbon Footprints, Climate, and Civic Causes
- Civic Actions to Impact the Future
- The Conservation Movement at a Crossroads: The Hetch Hetchy Controversy
- Do Our Parks Do What They Are Supposed to Do?
- Electromagnetism, Electric Communication, and Community
- Environmental Resource Management: Local and Historical Perspectives
- How Did Birds Gain Political Protection?
- Mandatory Vaccinations: Yea or Nay
- Motor Vehicle Safety
- Natural Disasters: Nature’s Fury
- The New England Fishing Industry: Sea Changes in a Community
- Outbreak – A World Wide Health Crisis
- Science & the Suffragettes
- The Scientific Method, School Shootings, and Civic Action
- Shrinking Glaciers
- TB or Not TB: Disease Prevention
- Technology & Presidential Nominating Conventions
- Vaccinations, Science, and the Law
- What’s the Problem with Patents?
More lesson plans
- Around the World in 1896 6-8
- Earth’s Changing Shape Unit 2
- Earth Systems Unit 2
- Energy Transfer: Cultural Explorations in STEM Education https://www.loc.gov/free-to-use/holidays/
- How Transportation Transformed America: Going to Market 3-8
- Sliding Rocks – Physics Measuring Motion Lesson using QFT 9-12
- Monarch Butterflies 2
- Rock Cycle Rocks! Unit 6
- Technology Time Travel 7-12
- Thomas Edison, Electricity, and America 7-12
- Valuing a Tree Unit 11-12
- Weather and Climate Unit 3
- Weather and Climate Unit 6
- Weather and Climate Potential Overall Effect on Roller Coaster Design 11-12
- Weather and Climate Overall Effect on Bridge Unit 11-12
- Weather and Its Environment Unit 3
- Weather and Seasons Unit K
Primary source sets with teacher guides
- Civil War Photographs: New Technologies and New Uses
- The Inventive Wright Brothers
- Scientific Data: Observing, Recording, and Communicating Information
- Understanding the Cosmos: Changing Models of the Solar System and the Universe
- Weather Forecasting
- Women in Science and Technology
Guided primary source analysis activities
- Automatic Asteroid Finder
- Boeing aircraft plant – production of B-17F
- Doctor Fesler has arrived
- Evening Sky Map for April 1912
- Form & Function
- Geology of the Solar System
- Grand Canyon Tourist Map
- Great Moon Hoax
- Hello, Earth! Hello!
- How the Sun Spots Control Our Weather
- Indian Timothy Memorial Bridge
- Jefferson’s Pasta Machine
- Little Rory Borealis
- Maya Dresden Codex
- Microcosm
- Motor Vehicle Safety
- Panoramic View of Mount Rainier
- Phrenological Delineation of His Character
- Science & the Suffragettes
- Shrinking Glaciers
- The Solar System Displayed
- Solving the riddle of Mars?
- Tesla’s 1922 Future Tech Predictions
- Woman’s Work
Collection connections
- Alexander Graham Bell Family Papers
- America’s First Look Into the Camera: Daguerreotype Portraits
- Built in America: Historic American Buildings Survey/Historic American Engineering Record
- Inside an American Factory: Films of the Westinghouse Works
- Inventing Entertainment: Early Motion Pictures and Sound Recordings of the Edison Companies
- Origins of American Animation
Teaching ideas & strategies
- Analyzing Primary Sources for Scientific Thinking & Organization
- Analyzing Primary Sources: Technology & Presidential Nominating Conventions
- Civil War Photography: Technology & Tricks
- Integrating Tech posts
- Learning from the Source: Science Radium Romp
- Leonardo’s Workshop: The Invention, Art & Science of Leonardo da Vinci
- Teaching with Primary Sources Quarterly: Science Edition
Note: This periodical has been renamed and is now the TPS Journal - Tech Tools posts
- Thomas Edison, Electricity, and America
- Timely Connections: Frederick Douglass & Scientific Racism
- Timely Connections: Worldwide Health Crisis
Science & technology blog posts from Teaching with the Library
- Asking Science and Social Studies Questions about “Radium Girls”
- Books, Insects, and a Woman Leading the Way in Science
- Coal River and Human Impacts on Earth’s Systems
- Communicating between Continents with Cables and Code
- Science Literacy and History: Comparing Masks from 1918 and Today
- Computer Science and Programming with Punched Cards (Part 1)
- Computer Science and Programming with Punched Cards (Part 2)
- Concepts Across the Sciences series
- Concussions, a Century of Controversy, and Football
- Datasets as Primary Sources: An Archaeological Dig into Our Collective Brains, Part 1
- Dimensions of Water Quality
- Discovering Gravity – An Apple or an Airplane?
- Discovering Science in Congress.gov
- Earthrise 50th Anniversary: A Lesson on Perspective
- Ecology: A New Primary Source Set from the Library of Congress
- Exploring Freezing Point Depression with an Image of a Thermometer
- Exploring the History of Women in STEM with Primary Sources
- Exploring Math, Science and Technology Primary Sources from the Library of Congress Manuscript Division
- Fifteen Years on the Erie Canal: Teaching About an Almost-Forgotten Form of Transportation
- Fostering Close Observations: Exploring Bat Anatomy through Scientific Illustrations
- Getting Right to the Source with Science-Related Primary Sources from the Library of Congress
- Happy Birthday to the Amazing Periodic Table!
- Infectious Diseases, Science Literacy, and Citizen Behavior: Helping Students Make Connections Using Historical Newspaper Articles
- Innovations with Digitized Newspapers
- Innovations with Sanborn Maps
- Inspiring the E(ngineering) in STEM by Exploring the Construction of Pop-up Books
- Invasive Species and Historic Newspapers from Chronicling America
- Launching Units with Primary Sources series
- Launching Units with Primary Source Phenomena series
- Microbeads, Nanomaterials, and Federal Legislation
- Paint, Poisoning, Proportions, and Public Health and Policy
- Plants, Photos from Tuskegee, and Planning Investigations
- Mapping the Ocean Floor, Marie Tharp, and Making Arguments from Evidence (Part 1)
- Mapping the Ocean Floor, Marie Tharp, and Making Arguments from Evidence (Part 2)
- Raising Bread and Curiosity
- Science, Civics, and Primary Sources: A Measles Debate One Hundred Years Ago
- Scientist and Inventor Thomas Edison
- Severe Weather and Community Resilience
- Size, Scale, and Scientific Communication
- Teaching Scientific Literacy series
- Teaching about Women’s Involvement in the History of Computer Science
- Thomas Edison’s Favorite Invention: The Phonograph
- Thomas Jefferson’s Proposed System of Weights and Measures
- Using Claim, Evidence, and Reasoning (CER) with Primary Source Analysis
More Library blog posts