Curriculum Units and Online Resources

Hemispheres works with educators, school districts, and state officials to “fill in the gaps” between teacher knowledge and the set goals of curricular mandates.  As part of our efforts, we have created classroom-ready curriculum units utilizing primary source documents, area studies content, and classroom activities for middle and high school students.   

Our curriculum units include all of the tools (background information, primary source readings, detailed maps, worksheets, activities) to make them ready to use in the classroom with little preparation—and, best of all, they’re FREE.

Texas’ mandated content standards, the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS), are closely aligned to national standards in the social studies.  However, you should feel free to adapt the activities to fit your classroom and your state standards.

• NEW: Handouts from sessions at the National Conference on Geography Education, San Juan, Puerto Rico, Sept 23-26.
  Handouts from "Mapping the Islamic City" (ZIP archive, 32.1 MB)
  Handout from "Tracking Cultures: Exploring the roots of Spanish America"

• Restoring Women to World Studies (2009)
  Inspired by the 2007 Hemispheres Summer Institute of the same name, Restoring Women to World Studies explores the situation of women—historical and contemporary—in Latin America, the Middle East, Russia, East Europe and Eurasia, and South Asia. Use primary source documents to discuss the contributions of notable women of historical and artistic spaces, examine concepts of gender roles and gender spaces, the issues that are driving women's movements today.

• Explorers, Traders, and Immigrants: Tracking the Cultural and Social Impacts of the Global Commodity Trade (2007)
  Inspired by the 2003 Hemispheres Summer Institute for teachers, which explored cultural contact by looking at the food we eat, Explorers, Traders, and Immigrants examines eight global commodities from their points of origin and the social, cultural, political, and economic changes they wrought along their way. Each case study covers the initial discovery of and/or access to a commodity, its progress from local good to international trade, the ramifications of large-scale production, and the drama of its boom-and-bust cycles through the years.

• People and Place: Curriculum Resources on Human-Environmental Interactions (2006)
  Inspired by Hemispheres 2004 Summer Teachers Institute, "People and Place: Human-Geographic Relations," this curriculum unit was designed to address human adaptation to and modification of the environment. Each case study includes myriad activities that build social studies skills by incorporating primary and secondary sources, presenting information in a variety of formats (including graphs, charts, and maps), including varied points of view, and using mathematical skills to interpret social studies information.

• Understanding Migration (2004)
  Developed at the request of educators like yourself and piloted at professional development sessions in the spring and summer of 2004, Hemispheres is pleased to release the final version of our popular curriculum unit online. Explore the basic concepts of human migration, and download classroom-ready activities to use. There's even a PowerPoint presentation to help you get started!

• Africa Enslaved: Comparative Slave Systems Outside the United States (2005)
  A Document-Based Question (DBQ) unit designed around the AP World History curriculum and aligned with Texas and National standards for history and geography, Africa Enslaved explores comparative slave systems outside of the US, with particular focus on Latin America, Africa, and the Middle East. Co-developed by LLILAS and the Center for Middle Eastern Studies.