East and West Jersey Charters
In this lesson, students will explore the colonial charters of both East and West Jersey, and construct their own class or school charter. From this two day activity students will be able to comprehend the factors that must be considered when a charter is established and how each charter came to shape the destiny of these two areas.

A Comparison Featuring the English Bill of Rights
This lesson revolves around the focus question: How much influence did the English Bill of Rights have on the principles of the United States government?  It invites students to examine primary source documents and compare and contrast them (and by proxy compare and contrast the different people living in eastern North America at this time). Students will also develop a sense of how the United States government was shaped by the principles of its colonial predecessors.

The Starving Time: Establishment of Jamestown Colony
This two-day lesson will hypothesize why the first few years of the Jamestown colony were so difficult through reading primary source material based on the accounts of those who lived through the “Starving Time.”  Also, the impact of Amerindian tribes, focusing on the Pocahontas story, describes that interdependence was necessary between the settlers and natives for the Jamestown settlers to survive.

Virginia House of Burgesses
This lesson will require students to work in small groups and analyze primary source documents that relate back to the House of Burgesses. Students will be given a series of focus questions and will have to present their article / document to the class. Day one of the lesson will focus on the analysis component and day two will have students in the front of the room presenting. The focus questions will also be used as a means of instruction through stimulating discussions as each presentation comes to a close.

Cultural Clashes in the “New World”
The crux of this lesson will have students work in small groups and research questions related to Native Americans and European immigrants. The majority of the time in this lesson will find students using the answers to these questions to formulate a role play in which they will have to act out a “culture clash” where they will encounter for the first time representatives from the other groups. As part of this activity they will be required to explain their culture to each other and attempt to reach some kind of compromise as to how they can live amicably together. Accomplishing this without compromising their values will be the key to this activity.

Colonial West Jersey and Colonial East Jersey
In this lesson students will compare and contrast the qualities of East to West Jersey as attractive for settlement in the eyes of specific target groups. Students will organize into advertising teams to create a campaign to convince these target groups to move to either East or West Jersey.  These groups will then present their campaigns while the student audience will use provided checklist to evaluate which section of New Jersey is optimal for most of the selected target groups to settle.  The student audience will then provide a paragraph explaining their choice.

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