Major US Wars and Military Involvement: Web Quests and Activities

War and conflict has shaped the United States in influential ways. War has freed slaves, ended genocide, taken down dictators, and even stimulated the economy. With freedom has come high death tolls or significantly altered political structures. War has shaped the United States in definite ways. George Santayana said, ?Progress, far from consisting in change, depends on retentiveness. Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.? The following resources focus on the major wars the United States has been a part of. Teachers can implement the WebQuests and activities to help students remember the past.

The Revolutionary War

• Reporters From the Front: Students will report on the Revolutionary war as if they are reporters on the front line.
• A Revolutionary WebQuest: An in-depth WebQuest project with tons of American Revolution files.
• Scavenger Hunt: A Revolutionary War scavenger hunt for the Internet.
• Revolutionary War: A fifth grade Revolutionary War WebQuest that promotes Internet usage.
• Revolutionary Researchers: Teachers implementing research in history classes can task students as timeline researchers of the war.

The War of 1812

• Why the War of 1812: Students must determine why the United States decided to get involved in the War of 1812.
• Was the War Important: Students use critical thinking by questioning the importance of the War of 1812 in the development if America.
• War of 1812: A WebQuest of 14 essential questions about the War of 1812.
• What?s Your Opinion?: A WebQuest created for 8^th graders to learn about the causes, experiences, and the result of the war.
• War of 1812 WebQuest: Teachers can change this WebQuest to fit their classes? curriculum.

 Mexican-American War

• Biographer: Students must compare and contrast the list of influential men in the Mexican-American War. Teachers can add more soldiers and politicians for upper grade levels.
• Opposition to the War: A three to five day class assignment on analyzing the Mexican War for high students.
• Manifest Destiny: An assignment for sixth to 12^th graders that combine language arts, civics, geography, and history to help learn about the commercial conquest of the United States.
• The Alamo: A fourth grade Social Studies WebQuest for studying the battle of Alamo.
• The Mexican American War: A project geared for 8^th graders that require Internet research to answer 20 questions on the Mexican- American War.

The Civil War

• The North vs. The South: Students are sent on a time travel mission to research and report on all the essential parts of the war.
• The Civil War: Teachers assign a topic related to the Civil War. The student will research all essential components of the topic and then create a hyper studio stack.
• Civil War: A WebQuest that requires a list of questions about the Civil War to be answered.
• Civil War Battles: Students are tasked to write about the Civil War from a journalist perspective.
• Life During: Students can combine history and the arts by creating a Civil War scrapbook.
• Civil War WebQuest: This 5^th grade WebQuest puts students in the hot seat by motivating them to debate on major issues of the Civil War.

The Spanish-American War

• Spanish-American War: An interactive WebQuest worksheet.
• Deep Thinking: A WebQuest that encourages critical thinking on the United States invading Cuba.
• Investigating the Spanish-American War: This WebQuest requires students to split up in teams and to report on the events surrounding the Spanish-American War.
• To Conquer or Redeem? Students utilize writing skills to construct essays analyzing American imperialism in the Spanish-Cuban-American War.

World War I

• The War to End All Wars: This WebQuest promotes analytical thinking about conflict.
• You are There: Students take on the persona of a person that was part of World War and write a report about their findings.
• Conflict of World War I: Students create a PowerPoint presentation on conflict in World War I.
• A Stage of Players: A high school WebQuest that tasks students with picking one of four identities and creating a group presentation.
• The Battles: A group WebQuest that requires 7^th grades to construct a role model or 3-dimensional model of a battle.

World War II

• Children of WWII: A 7^th grade WebQuest that helps students understand the life of children that experienced World War II.
• The Great War to End War: A group WebQuest where the students create a newspaper on 1914-1920.
• A Separate Peace: A language arts WebQuest for 7^th graders to create a memory book on the events of World War II.
• During the War: Students are tasked with producing a scrapbook to show to their grandchildren and report in front of the class as if they lived through World War II.

The Korean War

• Korean War WebQuest: Students work in groups to create a coffee table book on the Korean War.
•  Korean War: Teachers can add to the tasks of this WebQuest to provide students with more options to research and to create a presentation.
• The Korean Conflict: The task of this WebQuest is in the form of 12 questions for students to examine the Korean conflict.

Vietnam War

• The Vietnam War and the 1960's: 11^th graders are grouped into four to organize and research the Vietnam War to create a PowerPoint presentation.
• Vietnam Conflict: A task of 11 questions to promote higher thinking for 10^th grade students by learning about the Vietnam War.
• America Divided: Students must complete two tasks to discern between the pro-war and anti-war movements.

Desert Storm

• Desert Storm WebQuest: This WebQuest allows students to not only understand the Gulf War, but to understand its effect on the Iraqi War.
• The Gulf War WebQuest: A short WebQuest of six questions to help students understand the Gulf War conflict.

Operation Enduring Freedom

• A Land of Conflict: Students must write an essay showing the knowledge gained through research about the Middle East conflict.
• September 11, 2001: This WebQuest can be used to show students the lives that were lost on September 11, 2001. Students are required to construct a memorial that encompasses raw emotion.
• Persian Gulf War WebQuest: A group WebQuest that requires students to construct a newspaper to show how their assigned country was affected by the war.
• War on Terror: Students are tasked with examining September 11, 2001 and America?s viewpoint on the fight against terror.

Iraqi Freedom

• Iraq WebQuest: Students must use their critical thinking skills to access the Iraq War in the making.
• The Iraqi War: A group of students will create a PowerPoint on the Iraq War.
•  Will you be Our Neighbor?: Students will research the relationship of their assigned country and Iraq to show a perspective of conflict.

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