Students investigate how immigration, urbanization, city life, technology, labor, and reform between 1900 and 1910 shaped the future of the United States by asking and refining historical questions, analyzing change over time, and tracing cause-and-effect across later events. Through the “Progress or Problem?” launch, source-based inquiry, and collaboration with the MAC and its 1903 historic home, they build evidence-based interpretations that connect national transformations to real places and people. The learning experience culminates in a digital or physical timeline exhibit with before-and-after panels and a gallery walk reflection, where students communicate claims, assess their growth as historians, and compare their initial thinking to final conclusions using primary and secondary sources.

Students will analyze change, continuity, and cause-and-effect between 1900 and 1910 by investigating immigration, urbanization, city life, labor, technology, and reform, then use primary and secondary sources to support claims about which developments most shaped the future of the United States. They will design and refine historical questions about individuals, groups, and movements, evaluate how context shaped their actions, and connect earlier events in this decade to later national developments. Students will collaborate to create a digital or physical timeline exhibit with before-and-after panels and evidence-based captions, communicate their conclusions to an authentic audience through the MAC partnership, and participate in a gallery walk reflection using sticky-note feedback tied to the essential question and their growth as historians. They will also complete a before-and-after historian self-assessment that compares their initial understanding to their final conclusions and shows how their thinking changed through research and discussion.

Students will create source-analysis notes, station claims, and a human-continuum argument from the launch as checkpoints that build toward the final work. In teams, they will produce a digital or physical timeline exhibit with paired before-and-after panels that compare life in 1900 and 1910 in areas such as immigration, urbanization, city life, labor, technology, and reform, using primary and secondary sources, captions, and evidence-based claims tied to the essential question. Students will also create artifacts from the MAC partnership, such as a short interpretation of the 1903 house or a place-based panel connecting local history to national change. To close, each student will complete a before-and-after historian self-assessment and contribute sticky-note reflections during a gallery walk on how each exhibit answers the essential question and shows their growth as historians.

Begin with “Progress or Problem?” stations featuring short primary-source sets on technology, labor, immigration, city life, and reform, including photos, headlines, artifacts, and brief quotes from 1900–1910. Students rotate in teams, record what changed, who benefited, who was harmed, and which shift seems most likely to shape the nation’s future, then move to a human continuum to defend which change had the biggest long-term impact. Use the MAC partnership to add images or a virtual/onsite glimpse of the 1903 house so students compare everyday life at the turn of the century with life in 1910 and generate questions about continuity and change. Close with a whole-class launch board where students post initial claims and wonderings connected to the essential question, creating an entry point for the timeline exhibit and later historian self-assessment.

Host a public timeline exhibit at the MAC, using the 1903 house and museum spaces so student teams can display digital or physical before-and-after panels comparing life in 1900 and 1910 in areas like technology, labor, immigration, city life, and reform. Invite families, peers, museum staff, and community members to rotate through the exhibits, listen to student captions and evidence-based explanations, and leave sticky-note feedback during a short gallery walk on how each display answers the essential question and shows growth in historical thinking. Build in a brief opening where students revisit the “Progress or Problem?” launch by naming which change they now see as having the greatest long-term impact and defending that conclusion with primary and secondary sources. Close with a historian self-assessment display or reflection station where visitors can see how students’ thinking changed from the start of the project to their final conclusions.