Website: Animatedatlas.com
The website animatedatlas.com portrays large chapters of American History quickly by animating maps and geographic features for school, home, and genealogy use. It is colorful and stimulating and is broken up into sections that are extremely user friendly. For students, I think this website would be extremely useful because it utilizes and partners with websites that students are familiar with, such as youtube.com. The various maps are animated and give children a visual representation of the growth and development of our nation in an interesting and exciting manner. Students can click on any of the many animated maps and be taken to a digital movie of how America grew over the course of History.
One particular link is entitled “Growth of a Nation” and is a ten minute presentation illustrating the growth and change of the US from the original thirteen colonies to the present day. Students can play, pause and rewind as the video moves through a clear timeline on the bottom of the map, and watch the expansion of the US through land grants, the Revolutionary War, the Louisiana Purchase, concepts such as manifest destiny, and the exploration of Lewis and Clark. The entire video is narrated that explains how each expansion of the nation acquired new states and when each state was admitted into the union. It also discusses how states were admitted as free or slave states and covers government policies on our official borders and land acquisitions. Because the video is short and to the point, students will get a clear overview of the important events that led us to our current nation without getting bored.
I would enjoy using this website in my class curriculum, and I think the students would enjoy it as well. It is very interactive and user friendly, and breaks down important historical events with accompanying visual aids that are really useful. There is also a teachers guide to help plan lessons and develop study guides for the students to use.
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