Standard and Objective for Virtual Tour

5th Grade Social Studies:
Standard 4: Students will understand that the 19th century was a time of incredible change for the United States, including geographic expansion, constitutional crisis, and economic growth.
Objective 2: Assess the geographic, cultural, political, and economic divisions between regions that contributed to the Civil War.
a. Describe the impact of physical geography on the cultures of the northern and southern regions (e.g. industrial resources, agriculture, climate).
Objective 3: Evaluate the course of events of the Civil War and its impact both immediate and long-term.
a.Identify the key ideas, events, and leaders of the Civil War using primary sources (e.g. Gettysburg Address, Emancipation Proclamation, news accounts, photographic records, diaries).

My partner and I chose to do a virtual tour on the Civil War because there are many different battle sites in the United States. I have always loved learning about the Civil War and there is so much to learn about it. The tour allows for a lot of information in one place. It will make it easier for students to organize in their minds where these battles took place if they can see it on a map and read information about it. Most of the spots on the virtual tour are battles where there will be pictures with a brief description.There will also be an activity for students to find out important things that happened at that battle, important people, comparing casualties between battles and other things. A couple of the places we chose are important places-the Lincoln memorial where the students will learn about the Emancipation Proclamation and the Gettysburg address, the Appomattox Court house where the surrender took place, and the Arlington Cemetery where many soldiers were buried.

A virtual tour organizes all of this information into one place and that makes it much easier to work with. If I wasn't able to use a virtual tour I may use PowerPoint or some kind of lecture with lots of pictures and examples to show the students, but with the virtual tour I think it makes the learning more student owned. They can learn about the Civil War by following the directions on the tour and I think they will take more away from it.