Through examining their own backgrounds and communities, students discover and define their unique experiences of America while gaining insights into the diverse perspectives of others.

In this integrated project pack, we explore the question, *“What does it mean to be an American?”* through four key ideas:

1. To be American is to draw from more than one cultural background.
2. Americans straddle the border of shared community experience with unique mixes of identity, culture, and custom.
3. Regional areas, and their history, can be symbolized and understood through their natural features.
4. America is defined through the freedom it offers to experience it uniquely.

Each key idea includes a learning segment where students build knowledge and deepen their understanding of a topic area.

A second segment features artworks that support learning and deepen students’ understanding of the diverse ways the idea can be approached.

And finally, each key idea also includes an art project that connects everything together and encourages students to do so in a way that is personally and culturally relevant to them.