How to Use this On-line Curriculum

The table of contents for the online version of "All Hands on Deck: Learning Adventures Aboard Old Ironsides" is arranged by grade level to provide you with easy access; grades K-4, 5-8, and 9-12.

Preview Activities
The preview activities at the top of the table of contents will help you to establish a baseline of your students’ knowledge in order to gauge their progress over the course of the unit. It also contains some background information needed to complete Lesson 1 and provides a context for the curriculum as a whole.

Lessons
Lessons include core knowledge about a subject such as the ship’s construction, her crew, and her victories in battle, plus related classroom activities. Lessons are divided in to:

• Getting Started, with suggestions for engaging the class in the material, and key words and concepts, contain new vocabulary in bold. Bold words that are in italics are defined in a glossary at the end of each lesson. Bold words that are not in italics can be readily defined using a standard dictionary.
  
• Blank activity sheets for the lessons are linked as Adobe files. You are welcome to print out and copy the material from the website for educational purposes, though we ask that you follow generally accepted standards for crediting sources and clearly acknowledge the USS Constitution Museum.
  
• Some of the lessons contain Teacher Tried and True sections, which provide lesson adaptations contributed by the many teachers who tested this material across the country during the 1996-1997 school year.
  
• The activities within the curriculum have been matched up with the standards for social studies in several states including: IL, MD, WA, SC, TN, MO, TX, NM, CO, MT, and VA. We have also created a discipline grid, so that you can easily see which activities fall in to which discipline.

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Curriculum Sections
The four sections of the curriculum cover USS CONSTITUTION’s construction, the crew and the teamwork required to sail and fight the ship, her accomplishments in battle and her preservation. Each of the online curriculum’s four sections has:

• Recommend Resources, including books and articles, field trips, movies, music, and games, and a list of items to have on hand.
• At the end of each section is a catchall called Scuttlebutt (the name of the ship’s water barrel where crew could get a drink and converse with mates, hence the modern usage of the term). Here you will find a sampling of literature, humorous tales and interesting historical facts and anecdotes to extend the lessons.

The four sections of the curriculum are:

• I. Building a Ship, Building a Nation
  When challenged by enemies, America decides to build a navy. Starting with a revolutionary design, the United States built six heavily armed sailing and fighting machines called frigates.
  
  
• II. Test of Courage
  USS CONSTITUTION and her sister ships sailed to protect Americans and their overseas interests. The ultimate tests of the Ship and her crew came during battles in the Barbary Wars and the War of 1812, where the wooden warship earned the nickname "Old Ironsides."
  
  
• III. Regimen for Victory
  Life aboard a warship in the early 19th century was strictly regimented and control, functioning on teamwork, the highly specified job skills of the crew, and the leadership of the officers.
  
  
• IV. Staying Power
  CONSTITUTION has proven to be an enduring symbol of the nation’s strength and liberty. Time after time when threatened with neglect, Americans rallied to the Ship’s aid as she had fought for the country during her glory days at sea.

Search
You can customize your search of the online curriculum by entering several variables: discipline, subject, skill, and grade level.

Video
This online version of the "All Hands on Deck: Learning Adventures Aboard ‘Old Ironsides’" also includes a 19-minute video presentation about a young girl aboard CONSTITUTION for the bicentennial sail who goes below decks and meets several real people from the ship’s past. You can view the video online with streaming video or order a VHS or DVD copy.

Summary Activity
A summary activity appears at the end of the table of contents, titled CONSTITUTION’s Portrait Gallery contains biographical sketches of some of the remarkable people that have figured in CONSTITUTION’s long life.

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