 
In this section, we present some tools to help educators explore the significance of race through multiple disciplines. Lesson plans draw from the television series, the Web site and carefully selected resources.
Be sure to check out the Teaching Tips included in the Go Deeper sections of each featured interactivity. Click on a lesson title to view the full document.
NOTE: We are continuing to develop new lesson plans and will
add them as they are ready. Check back regularly for new additions.
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Title: Jamestown:Planting the Seeds of Tobacco and the Ideology of Race
Grade levels: 10th grade through sophomore
year of college
Subjects: U.S. History, American Studies
Description: The focus of this detailed
lesson is American racial ideology as it began to evolve
in late 17th century Jamestown and Virginia. It aims to
help students question their own assumptions about what
race is and is not. Using segments of Episode 2 - The
Story We Tell, the RACE companion Web site, and primary
documents from online resources, students will examine
the unique conditions and events that led to the world's
first system of slavery based on race.
Time Allotment: 8 class sessions + extensions
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Title: Just an Environment or a Just Environment? Racial Segregation and Its Impacts
Grade levels: 10th grade through sophomore
year of college
Subjects: Civics, Government, Sociology,
Institutional Racism, Environmental Racism, White Advantage
Description: This lesson explores the
multiple causes of racial segregation and environmental
racism, and helps students understand how institutional
racism is perpetuated in the post-Civil Rights era.
Students will perform a mock tribunal in which they
will research, interpret, analyze and apply historical
evidence of factors that contribute to continuing racial
segregation and disparity in the United States.
Time Allotment: 5-6 class sessions + extensions
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Title: The Empirical Challenges of Racial Classification
Grade levels: 9-14
Subjects: Biology, Anthropology, Genetics,
Geography
Description: This lesson will help
students examine their preconceptions and assumptions
about racial categories and understand the impossibility
of constructing a consistent biological system of human
racial classification.
Time Allotment: 2-3 class sessions + extensions
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Title: Comparing mtDNA Sequences to Learn about Human Variation
Grade levels: 9-14
Subjects: Biology, Physical Anthropology,
Genetics
Description: This computer-based lesson
will enable students to test their notions of "racial"
similarity and difference by comparing mtDNA sequences
as the students do in the Episode 1 of RACE - The
Power of an Illusion. Students can either sequence
and compare their own mtDNA (with each other as well
as with individuals from around the world) or compare
public sequence files from different world populations
to gain an understanding of human genetic variation.
Time Allotment: 2-3 class sessions + extensions
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Title: Comparing Chimpanzee mtDNA Sequences to Learn about Races
Grade levels: 9-14
Subjects: Biology, Physical Anthropology,
Genetics
Description: In this computer-based
lesson, students will measure genetic diversity within
and between three subspecies of chimpanzees in order
to gain a better understanding of genetic distinctiveness
and explore race as a genetic concept.
Time Allotment: 1 class session + extension
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Title: The
Growth of the Suburbs - and the Wealth Gap
Grade Levels: 11th & 12th grades
Subject Matter: Economics, Social Studies, American
History
Description: This lesson demonstrates the important
role that family wealth plays in shaping life chances
and creating opportunity and it explores the roots and
consequences of the current race-based wealth gap.
Time Allotment: up to 4 class sessions
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