Educators can use America From Scratch (and its discussion guides) to engage the most important issues of the day, and to encourage critical thinking and promote civic engagement with their students.

Learn about the checks and balances system of the three branches of the U.S. government.

In this game, test your knowledge of the branches of the U.S. government!

What new things did you learn about the Branches of Government? Take this quiz to test your knowledge!

Show that you know about the three branches of government by taking this quiz!

What are some of the new things you learned about the Branches of Government? Take this quiz to test your knowledge!

The Court decided that state laws requiring separate but equal schools violated the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment. This resource includes teacher materials, guides, and activities for teaching about this Supreme Court case.

This page provides a basic overview of checks and balances and what each branch can do to check the other.

The principle of checks and balances prevents one branch of government from becoming too powerful. Examples of checks and balances include vetoing of bill, ratifying treating, judicial review and others. This lesson provides video clips with examples and explanations of checks and balances.

Prerequisite: Students need to know the function of each of the branches of government. In this activity, students examine documents from U.S. history to examples of specific "checks and balances."

Created through a partnership between the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Library of Congress, Chronicling America offers visitors the ability to search and view newspaper pages from 1690-1963 and to find information about American newspapers published between 1690"“present using the National Digital Newspaper Program.

Learn about what it takes to become a citizen of the United States of America.

In this lesson students will examine the concept of "citizen" from a definitional perspective of what a citizen is and from the perspective of how citizenship is conferred in the United States. Students will discuss the rights and responsibilities of citizens and non-citizens and review the changing history of citizenship from colonial times to the present.

When European colonists came to North America, they faced the challenge of establishing societies that reflected their identity and mission for God. Experiments with economic and civil liberty followed in the name of the common good. Colonists and, later, the Founding generation became convinced that legally requiring individuals to commit their labor or their money towards a communal farm or church, with no regard for individual contribution or conscience, violated principles of justice.

The delegates at the 1787 Convention faced a challenge as arduous as those who worked throughout the 1780s to initiate reforms to the American political system. In this unit, students will examine the roles that key American founders played in creating the Constitution, and the challenges they faced in the process.

The Constitution acted like a colossal merger, uniting a group of states with different interests, laws, and cultures. Under Americaâ"s first national government, the Articles of Confederation, the states acted together only for specific purposes. The Constitution united its citizens as members of a whole, vesting the power of the union in the people. Without it, the American Experiment might have ended as quickly as it had begun.

This lesson plan looks at the major ideas in the Declaration of Independence, their origins, the Americans' key grievances against the King and Parliament, their assertion of sovereignty, and the Declaration's process of revision.

At a time when the country was in deep conflict over slavery, the Supreme Court decided that Dred Scott was not a “citizen of the state” so it had no jurisdiction in the matter, but the majority opinion also stated that Dred Scott was not a free man. This resource includes teacher materials, guides, and activities for teaching about this Supreme Court case.

Go to National Archives and search for the electoral college, if the link does not work, this Text/HTML has a ton of information on the electoral college as well as historical results. You can also see the actual ballots sent in by each state as well as all electors chosen by each party within a state. LW

This is a case about whether public schools may also play a role in teaching faith to God through the daily recitation of a government-endorsed, teacher-led prayer. This resource includes teacher materials, guides, and activities for teaching about this Supreme Court case.