Meet the U.S.A.

Session 1 - "Draw the States"

This program seeks to establish a foundation upon which a lifetime of future learning about the United States may be built. To start, we must get to know the lay of the land.

A study of latitude and longitude will position America on the globe, and then start us drawing the western states. An emphasis on rivers, lakes, coastlines and watersheds will provide us the logic for shaping the older states along the Atlantic. Working in teams, students will assemble large puzzles of the states. Individually, all students will receive workbooks to assist practice toward a goal of drawing the United States from memory.

Session 2 - "Your Own American Timeline" 

This class will ask students to describe the passage of history in terms of their own lifetimes. How many years make up a generation? How many "great-greats" are numbered between their grandparents and the hundreds of their ancestors alive somewhere in the world in 1776? What was happening in American history at the time when an ancestor made the move that led to the student being here today in San Luis Obispo County? Students will create their own personalized time line of the years between America's founding era and the present.

Session 3 - "American Origin Stories" 

This class looks at the three centuries of meetings, intersections and cultural collisions that preceded America's founding era. Humanity, ever on the move, had populated North and South America, spreading last of all to the islands of the Caribbean. There, in 1492, humanity arrived again, this time from across the Atlantic. From Quebec to Barbados, and Saint Augustine to Sitka, cultural intersections would form the character of the future United States, playing out in different stories with a cast of characters drawn from the endless diversity of Europe, Africa and North America.