On November 10, 1865, Wirz became one of the few to be hanged after  being convicted by a military tribunal. Teachers can connect standard SSH6b by simulating this  experience for students  with a  

mock trial. S tudents could also gain a lesson in how economic markets work using Andersonville as a model.  Background information can be used t o extend the lesson or help students prepare along with the myths of Civil War prisons.

In addition to the virtual field trip contained within the Georgia Studies digital text, GPB hosts a Georgia Stories short video, study guide and additional teacher resources. 

Take Students to Etowah Historic Site

Our newest virtual field trip is now available through the GPB app on iPad and on the web at gpb.org/vitualfieldtrip. You will need to request a login to get started. If you have a login for the Georgia Studies digital textbook, that login will work for the virtual field trip series.

The first of three Mississippian-period Indian sites, students can take a 360 degree tour from atop the mounds, watch videos and hear interviews with rangers at the site, and view historical artifacts of Indian life and culture. 

For ideas in the classroom, the Society for Georgia Archeology offers lesson plans  In their series "Learning through Archeology," on the Etowah Indian Mounds , the  contact of Native American indians with Europeans, and  skills and techniques of Georgia's earliest inhabitants.

The events leading up to the Civil War are covered in chapters 12 and 13 of the Georgia Studies digital textbook, collectively. The South's insistence on independent states' rights (p. 291) had a lot to do with their slave economy (297-98) and their dislike for tariffs, leading to an act of nullification (292-93) and showdown with the federal government. The issue profoundly concerned Georgia (322-24). To help students evaluate primary sources and interpret data, two "Skill Activities" offer differing perspectives on slavery (311-14) and demographic as well as economic graphs on slave population and cotton production (282-83) for students to interpret.

Instrumental in staving off war in spite of growing tension was Henry Clay who took part in crafting both the Missouri Compromise of 1820 (299) and the Compromise of 1850 (300-01). Interactive maps help students visualize the growing tension. Yet Georgia's platform (301) of adopting the Compromise broke down after the Kansas and Nebraska Act was passed (301-02) giving states popular sovereignty over whether or not to be admitted as a slave state. A video of the Dred Scott decision (302) from "Today in Georgia History," allows students a better understanding of the complicated nature of the compromises being crafted and how multiple levels and branches of government were involved.

The nail in the coffin, so to speak, was the 1860 election of Abraham Lincoln (318-319). And Georgia's reaction was swift, appropriating money for defense and eventually seceding from the Union (320-24). A special interactive graphic offers students the opportunity to look closely at Georgia's "Ordinance of Secession" (322). By January state militia forces seized Forth Pulaski in Savannah. A slideshow boasts a mini tour of the fort today (320). For culminating activities, the National Endowment for the Humanities' EDSITEment website offers four lessons focusing on the growing sectional crises from Missouri in 1820, to Kansas and Nebraska in 1854 and finally Lincoln's election in 1860.

Our film crew has had a busy month getting great footage for some of our newest virtual field trips that are coming soon. 

We were at Fort Pulaski, which was bombarded by Union forces in 1862 (p. 320), and the Ralph Mark Gilbert Civil Rights Museum, named for the Savannah leader of the NAACP and Pastor of the First African Baptist Church there. We filmed at Fort McAllister, which fell to Sherman in 1864 (341), and Ft. Kin g George, an early British outpost erected in 1721 (110). At Track Rock Archeological Site (71) we viewed Mississippian Indian petroglyphs and stopped by Hofwyl Broadfield Plantation famous for its Antebellum rice cultivation (268-69). 

GPB traveled to Old Fort Jackson, used in the War of 1812, occupied by Union troops during Sherman's march (341-42), and even held by the 54th Massachusetts regiment famously depicted in the movie Glory partially filmed on Jekyll Island. We visited Wormsloe Planatio n, the estate of Noble Jones, who arrived in Georgia with Oglethorpe and took part in conflicts with the Spanish from 1740-1742 (128-29), and earlier in the month our team got a great look around from Brasstown Bald (31), named for a former Cherokee village and the highest point in the entire state. Stay tuned for more updates!

Brasstown Bald, Georgia