Education Modules

Examining Culture through the Lens of a Will
Lesson plans: Teachers page
Grades/Level: Middle School (7-9), High School (9-12)
Subjects:  Social Studies, Language Arts
Overview: Very few documents survive that were written from the perspective of enslaved people in Virginia. We learn about their lives through letters, legal documents, plantation accounts, and newspaper stories and advertisements written by white landowners, and through archaeology. In order to understand the history of one group of slaves who lived in central Virginia in the 1700s, we will start by reading the will of a wealthy landowner who considered them, by the laws of the day, to be his property. More broadly, by reading this will we can explore what the will of a wealthy landowner tells us about the culture of the time.

Examining land ownership at Indian Camp
Lesson plans: Teachers page
Grades/Level: Middle School (7-9), High School (9-12)
Subjects:  Social Studies, Language Arts
Overview: Students engage with changing land ownership at the Indian Camp plantation from 1710 through 1770, revieving maps, and related primary documents. How did rivers and roads affect development? What was the effect of land fragmentation and family ownership on the building of community, for both the land owners and their enslaved workers?

Bones and Seeds - Examining the faunal and botanical remains at Wingo's
Lesson plans: Teachers page
Grades/Level: Middle School (7-9), High School (9-12)
Subjects:  Science, Social Studies, Language Arts, Math, Statistics
Overview: The study of animal bones provides valuable information about what people ate, how meat was prepared, animal husbandry practices, and social status. As an archaeologist, you have just received the data from your consultants on the bones and seeds that were excavated at the Wingo's site.

What does this evidence tell us about which foods were eaten by enslaved people at the Wingo's site? Use the data to write a report about foods eaten at the slave quarter and then go on to play the food game!