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Fort Sumter National Monument
Lesson Plans & Teacher Guides
Teacher's Guide

The Fort Sumter Teacher’s Guide is designed as an informative tool for South Carolina educators. The National Park Service values education and strives to help students and teachers learn the unique history of special places.

National Park Service staff and volunteers developed this guide that connects the state curriculum standards to the NPS sites in the Charleston area. These sites include Fort Sumter, Fort Moultrie, the Fort Sumter Visitor Education Center at Liberty Square and Charles Pinckney National Historic Site.

We encourage you to apply any of the material found in the guide to plan visits or enrich and augment the materials you present to your students in the classroom.

Download the teacher's guide (pdf, 1.9 MB)
 

 
Lesson Plans & Activities

Fort Sumter National Monument gives you a wonderful opportunity to have your students experience the power of visiting the place where the Civil War began. The lesson plans below are designed to engage and prepare students for their trip to the historic fort. There are additional resources and information available throughout this website that will make your trip to Fort Sumter enjoyable and educational. We encourage you to use the activities listed, as they were designed to meet the state of South Carolina Social Studies curriculum standards and the National Council for the Social Studies national curriculum standards.

For more information:
Educational Activities (pdf, 54 KB)
First Shots Lesson Plan (pdf, 187 KB)
Composite photos of Maj. Anderson (left) and Gen. Beauregard (right)  

Did You Know?
Union Maj. Robert Anderson, commanding Fort Sumter, and Confederate Gen. P.G.T. Beauregard, commanding Charleston's forces during the first battle of the Civil War, knew each other since the 1830s. Anderson was Beauregard's artillery instructor at West Point. Fort Sumter National Monument, SC

Last Updated: August 13, 2006 at 23:44 EST