Historical Marker: History is All Around Us!

History is all around us! This is a great assignment that I did for my Utah History students. However, it could work for any history class in any state. The previous for this project is that students will need to:

• Go to a Historical Marker within the State of Utah
• (plaques with on old buildings, or monuments etc.)
• Take a Selfie at the Marker 
• (Print off or send to me to print)
• Do a little research about said marker
• Present to the class

Selfie at Hotel Utah,
 My kids and myself

To help students find markers, to begin with, I had students look up markers using the Utah Heritage website:

https://heritage.utah.gov/history/historic-markers

In this link select “Markers and monuments database”  then search by County, Organization, Keyword, or Theme. In most cases, it will have a short description.

I even placed a map on the back wall of my classroom with pins and selfies of places that my student have gone within the state. 

To help motivate students, I award 3 prizes at the end of each quarter.

1. Best Selfie
2. Farthest Marker
3. Most Interesting 

For most students, they enjoyed this project and enjoyed learning about the little-known history of our small towns and our state. When it came to students that claimed that their parents couldn't take them to a Historical Site, I had them have their parents contact me, or reminded them that there were a ton within a 30 min drive.

John C. Fremont Document Based Question

Document Based Questions (DBQ)  are a great way for teaching students to use Primary and Secondary Sources and formulate their own conclusions. For this DBQ I took an article for Utah Historical Quarterly and simplified it and broke it scaffold it with a question to help students understand its significance.
The question that students were to keep in mind during this assignment was: How were Mormon Settlements Influenced by John Fremont's Reports of the Great Basin?
Students would then read the documents intrprite and read maps, and answer questions to help students understand what they should be looking for.
Depending on the level of students they would then come up with a Thesis and Essay to answer the first question.

The Full Document Based Question is at the Following Link to a Google Doc:
Fremont Mormon Settlement Document Based Question

Baugh, Alexander L. "John C. Fremont's 1843-44 Western Expedition and Its Influence on Mormon Settlement in Utah." Utah Historical Quarterly 83.4 (2015): 254-69. Print.