Following the stock market crash of 1929, the United States plummeted into the Great Depression and unemployment soared. But when Franklin D. Roosevelt took office the following year, he enacted federal programs, financial regulations, and public works projects to boost the economy and put America back together. In this instructive volume, students will discover fascinating facts and little-known details about this series of reforms, called the New Deal. They'll also be able to choose from a variety of hands-on projects, from map-making to writing and performing a speech to designing and creating a brochure, in order to both broaden and deepen their learning experience and share what they know with their peers.

This project-based examination of World War II explores the topic through answering major questions that define this period in history. Learners will tackle challenges and questions through an extended process of investigation and contextualization, guided by historical facts and events that help students refine their research and focus their projects. Placing WWII in a real-world context will lend authenticity to their understanding of the war's depth and significance. Students will retain autonomy over their process, reflect on what they've learned, and share their process with peers and teachers. The result of each project is an actual product students will present to their peers.

The varied projects in this volume present readers with more than a dozen lenses through which to learn about the progress and impact of the Industrial Revolution, and the tide of industrialization it unleashed, in the United States. Broad questions prompt readers to engage with major themes in civics, geography, economics, and history. A wealth of background information helps readers understand how these themes play out in the context of the profound shifts in the American economy and society that took place in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

Students will gain a deeper understanding of the Cold War by delving into major social studies topics in this project-based examination. The volume presents a series of broad questions touching on major themes in the social studies curriculum. Each question is accompanied by several paragraphs examining that question in the context of the Cold War, as well as a detailed project that prompts readers to think critically and present their findings or opinions in a particular format, such as a poster with side-by-side comparisons, a persuasive essay, or a class presentation.

The Civil Rights Movement changed the face of America when it commenced back in the 1950s, but racism is still a contentious reality in the twenty-first century. Readers will get a thorough review of the movement, its major players, and the lasting effects it had on the country. They'll also learn what project-based learning entails, and how they can put it to use. Hands-on project suggestions encourage readers to think creatively as well as analytically about the Civil Rights Movement, while allowing them more flexibility in how they approach it.

The idea of the Roaring '20s conjures up images of speakeasies, women with short, saucy hairdos, and hot jazz. Readers will learn about the historical events that define this decade, including the devastating war that preceded it. An explanation about project-based learning will help readers understand how it can help them research their topic in unique and interesting ways. Constructive suggestions offer ideas for projects, while encouraging readers to take their studies in new and interesting directions.

In a riveting account based on new documents and interviews with more than 400 sources on both sides of the aisle, award-winning reporter Michael Grunwald reveals the vivid story behind President Obama’s $800 billion stimulus bill, one of the most important and least understood pieces of legislation in the history of the country. Grunwald’s meticulous reporting shows how the stimulus, though reviled on the right and the left, helped prevent a depression while jump-starting the president’s agenda for lasting change. As ambitious and far-reaching as FDR’s New Deal, the Recovery Act is a down payment on the nation’s economic and environmental future, the purest distillation of change in the Obama era. The stimulus has launched a transition to a clean-energy economy, doubled our renewable power, and financed unprecedented investments in energy efficiency, a smarter grid, electric cars, advanced biofuels, and green manufacturing. It is computerizing America’s pen-and-paper medical system. Its Race to the Top is the boldest education reform in U.S. history. It has put in place the biggest middle-class tax cuts in a generation, the largest research investments ever, and the most extensive infrastructure investments since Eisenhower’s interstate highway system. It includes the largest expansion of antipoverty programs since the Great Society, lifting millions of Americans above the poverty line, reducing homelessness, and modernizing unemployment insurance. Like the first New Deal, Obama’s stimulus has created legacies that last: the world’s largest wind and solar projects, a new battery industry, a fledgling high-speed rail network, and the world’s highest-speed Internet network. Michael Grunwald goes behind the scenes—sitting in on cabinet meetings, as well as recounting the secret strategy sessions where Republicans devised their resistance to Obama—to show how the stimulus was born, how it fueled a resurgence on the right, and how it is changing America. The New New Deal shatters the conventional Washington narrative and it will redefine the way Obama’s first term is perceived.