We are roughly halfway through the spring semester and I
have now done two different “history lab” assignments with my survey classes,
with another one to come on Friday. I will write about my experiences with each
of these assignments in three different posts. The first history lab asked
students to consider the experiences of homesteaders in Kansas in the 1870s and
1880s. I wish I could say I was very original and creative in the way I
approached this history lab, but I wasn’t. I basically modeled my assignment on
this one, developed by the Center for Historical Education. But I did add a few
unique components.