Intended Audience,

Goals/Objectives,

and Standards Covered:

Intended Audience

This WebQuest was desiged for fifth grade social studies students who are learning about United States history and Native Americans in the process.

Goals and Objectives

- Students will build and enhance their own knowledge of Native Americans and their dwellings, locations, food sources, values, beliefs, and their conflict or cooperation with neighboring tribes.

Standards Covered

Native People Before Columbus

Theme 2: The development and expansion of the United States was driven by the relationship between location, natural resources, climate and the cultures of the people who settled North America.

Benchmark Alignment: I.2LE1, II.4LE1, III.5LE2

Definition: Seventy five million people populated the Western Hemisphere by 1492, most of them living in present day Mexico, Central America, the Caribbean Islands and Peru.

Explanation: In North America native peoples grouped themselves into several hundred nations and tribes speaking many languages. They lived in every ecological region. They flourished and transformed the landscape. They created a web of trails and roads, and built hunting camps and villages, and cleared land for cornfields. Their ability to see themselves as acting with nature rather than conquering nature was a unifying philosophy of very diverse people.

Iroquois League

Theme 5: American growth can be understood by comparing the development of social and cultural groups, and different regional characteristics.

Benchmark Alignment: I.1LE1, I.2LE2, II.4LE2, II.4LE6, III.1LE2, IV.2LE1, IV.4LE1, V.2LE1

Definition: The Iroquois League was comprised of five Iroquois tribes. Each tribe retained its own system of self-government. They came together as a league to settle matters such as war and trade. Matters of mutual importance were decided by a Great Council which was composed of members of all five tribes. The oldest women of each tribe chose the male council member to represent them. All had to agree, unanimously, before any action was taken. The Iroquois League was also known as the Iroquois Confederation.

Explanation: A comparison of the Iroquois with other groups allows students to see how people adapted to their circumstances. The Iroquois provide an example of how a non-European culture organized politically. This union made the Iroquois a formidable force relative to other tribes that did not unite politically. Students can gain understanding from the comparison of how Europeans and non-Europeans living in North America solved governance problems.

Comparative Native American Cultures

Theme 1: The movement of people, the spread of cultures and technological innovations of diverse groups and visionaries fueled the growth of America.

Benchmark Alignment: I.2LE1, II.2LE4, II.3LE3, II.3LE4, III.5LE2, IV.5LE3

Definition: North American Native Americans are generally grouped by shared cultural characteristics into ten groups. Often identified as Arctic, Sub Arctic, Northwest Coast, Plateau, Great Basin, California, Southwest, Eastern Woodlands (Northeast), and Eastern Woodlands (Southeast).

Explanation: The region in which Native Americans lived often determined much about their way of life such as clothing, food, and housing. Many aspects of Native American culture were the same independent of geographic region, like the maintenance of trade networks, adoption of the bow and arrow and ceramic pottery, a preference for seasonal food procurement and for communities based on kinship.

This page last updated on:
January 23, 2005