North Hills SD teachers use innovative activity to teach American history

North Hills Middle School eighth-graders celebrated Constitution Day with a novel BreakoutEDU activity that combined popular escape rooms, iPads, American presidents and primary source historical documents. Students were told that a president wants to create his/her own version of American history by getting rid of all primary source documents. The secret to saving the nation and stopping the president from abusing his/her power was locked in a heavy, wooden box secured by five locks. Only they could save the nation by using their communication, collaboration, critical thinking and creativity skills to open the box and release its answer before time expired.

Students worked together to decipher clues from various primary source documents used by teacher Joe Welch throughout the year from TeachingAmericanHistory.org/Ashbrook’s 50 Core Documents, Our Documents, Library of Congress, National Archives, Gilder Lehrman, and the Smithsonian Learning Lab. Once they were worked out solutions and unlocked each lock, the students found the answer they needed to save the nation from ruin – The Constitution.