Fort Ross State Historic Park
This curriculum is for teachers, parents, and students who
are coming for the
overnight program and our many day
programs.
More activities are listed here.
Our mission is to offer as many educational opportunities onsite, at home, and in the classroom to all age students who are studying Fort Ross, California History, North Pacific Exploration, or World Trade History. In the classroom or at home is a time when students can explore their thoughts and feelings of Fort Ross. When students arrive at Fort Ross with a good understanding of the site’s natural and cultural history, they benefit much more from the on site visit. With the use of this material you will be able to create educational and fun lesson plans for the student. Intertwining the history of Fort Ross with the history of the rest of California and the North Pacific will encourage a better understanding of California’s changing history and encourage creative thinking for both kids and teachers. Social history, Cultural history , Economics, Geography, Mapping, Game Playing, Journal writing, Storytelling, crafts like rope making, butter churning, basket weaving, and leather work are all a part of this curriculum. Another way to learn history is to compare different music, art, religion, dress, home construction, folk tales, and food of the three main cultural groups that lived here; Russian, Alaskan, and Pomo and Coast Miwok people. The Natural history with the coastal terrace, the redwood environment and the marine life can fit into all age levels of study. The benefit to the children in using this material is simply education, and with that, understanding of the world around them. The use of your parks develops and encourages understanding of the value of the resources around them in their daily lives. The benefit to the park is stewardship and respect. We want students to care deeply about the quality of life in their community, their nation, and their world. We make every effort to meet California State Standards and Framework for History-Social Science curriculum.
Classroom time is in many ways the most important aspect of the program. This is the time for all participants to research the natural and cultural history of Fort Ross and build their own ideas and questions. Throughout the year, lesson plans can be used to integrate preparation for your onsite visit. The possibilities are endless. Math combines with health, history, and the language arts as students research eating habits, plan appropriate menus and determine food costs. Math skills can be used to figure out what an 1821 gold ruble was worth as compared to an 1821 dollar and a current dollar. Put a Russian Naturalist like Ilia Gavrilovitch Voznesenskii into your science unit. Discuss the kind of work he was doing at Fort Ross in 1840. Have children read and react to primary source materials written about Fort Ross. We are available to help you in any way that we can to integrate Fort Ross into your curriculum.
To stir even more student interest they can: write book reports, give oral reports, do role-playing, do video interviews in character, make and use visual aids (bulletin boards, collages, etc.), see films, draw pictures of the fort, research period costumes, learn Russian songs and dances, create a puppet show about Ross, research Russian foods and practice cooking, learn Russian games, establish an in-class trade system. The ideas are endless. The more students become involved and creative, the more they will benefit from the program. We could not even begin to list all of the wonderful projects that we have seen teachers carry out with their students before their onsite visit. Use some of the projects listed below or let them be inspiration for your own projects.
The children’s history and questions will be useful to any student.
Costumes from other ELP groups
Costumes
Primary
Sources are very valuable and a BIG part of this curriculum
guide. We encourage you to use them.
Agriculture
Bill of Sale when Fort
Ross was transferred to John Sutter
Brick-making
California Places
Contracts with employees
Treaty with the Kashaya
List of items, Il'lia
Voznesenskii, a scientist, brought back to Russia
Life, Work, and Wages and
Debts, of Company Employees
Biographies
of real people and role- playing
is a must if coming on the
overnight or day Environmental Living Program. Biographies of those who lived and
worked at Ross is a great way to learn about the people who make up the local history.
We encourage you to do research on the
real people. For more
about the Native Alaskans and
Native
Californians click
here.
Chronology
For other interesting facts about Fort
Ross click here.
AND for more dates in history - please click here.
We
have a list of fun facts related to
the Russian American Company and California.
The onsite questions are an easy to use handout for your students.
Design a
Russian
American Company Flag. Maybe the militia would like to write a flag
salute.
Design a class banking system
based Russian American Company wages and trade items.
Design a
fort compound of your own and than see how it compares
to the Russian fort.
Create a Fort Ross meal.
Research and prepare foods
they were growing at Fort
Ross relating to the Russians, Kashaya, or Alaskan food traditions.
Learn what the missions were growing and how it influenced Fort Ross.
Play Russian games, Kashaya games, or Alaskan games,
Write book reports from the many books relating to the presence of The Russian American Company. Students may make journals out of brown paper bags. Include Russian Alphabet and Russian phrases. After reading and discussing sections of Historical Overview, students write in their journals. Journal write from the perspective of an Alaskan, Russian, or Native Californian.
Find out why they said "Don't throw the baby out with the bath water".
Math/P.E.: Post a large enlargement of map showing distance from school to Fort Ross. Students run around schoolyard, add distances run and calculate amounts that eventually add up to the distance to Fort Ross.
Use the
Glossary for spelling words. Begin introducing Russian words and phrases.
Here is a list of spelling words:
Alaska
Aleuts
Kodiaks
Blockhouse
Blacksmith
Chapel
Militia
Pantry
Redwood
Samovar
Colonists
Barracks
Armory
Russia
Siberia
Baidarkas
Kashaya
Coast Miwok
Bodega Bay
Establish “Company” policy as your class room rules.
Learn about our Natural History and/or Grow a plant that was grown here at the fort.
What folktales and legends do the Kashaya and Coast Miwok have?
Crafts, such as basket making, butter churning, leather work, wood work, paint a wooden spoon, weave a Russian belt, or have a weaver come in and spin and dye wool, sewing or embroidery are great home or classroom activities.
Compare music, arts, religion, dress, homes, or food of the various cultures at Ross.
Learn some of the Dances of Colony Ross
Make a scarf or an apron - or a Russian style hat.
Take oral history from local elders to learn about your own community and the people around you. Learn how to conduct an interview?
Trace your own family history. Where does your family come from? What country? Where were they born? When did they first arrive in this country? Why did they come to the United States? What jobs did they do? Conduct an interview of your parents, grandparents, and other relatives. Are there photographs and other documents that can help tell the story? What special family holidays and celebrations do you celebrate today that originated in the relatives country? Are their songs, family recipes, and other traditions that can be shared? On a map show where your family is from.
Letters: For many children, the trip to Fort Ross is their first overnight away from Mom and Dad. Homesickness can be lessened by having an evening mail call when letters written by Mom or Dad are passed out. It is the most fun if the parents’ letters fit into the general program. Have the parents address the letter to the student’s character name. Have them ask questions like “How was your long ship voyage to Fort Ross?” or “Is the company giving you enough to eat?” If possible, keep the letters a secret from the students so that mail call after dinner is an even more thrilling surprise. Our Environmental Living Program has mail call. Here are some letters from the past.
Visit sites of Native American or Russian interest.
International
trade and commerce was one of the most motivating factors in the Russian,
American, British, and Spanish expansion of the North Pacific. What trade routes
did those in the North Pacific take? And
whom did the RAC trade with? What ships were used? What were the trade prices
and for what trade
item? Who gained economically and how? Did everyone make a profit?
Create a trade store for the classroom or your on site visit. Throughout the year have the children make things like bead necklaces, paint headscarves, weave belts, etc. You can also buy inexpensive items like licorice or hard candies or appropriate Chinese items. As the school year progresses, have the children earn rubles for good work or conduct. When you come to Fort Ross, put all of the items together into a trade store where they can spend their hard earned rubles. Have them keep a bank balance of rubles earned. You can also pay them for their on-site work.
Passes: Each student should have a pass, which s/he always has available to show an official during the stay at Colony Ross. The passes can be fairly simple or elaborate. The children should do their own pass as part of character development.
Vitus Bering’s explorations of the North Pacific in the 1700s was a logical extension of this eastward movement. These voyages culminated in Russian exploration and settlement in Alaska and eventually in California.
Learn more about archaeology
More activities are listed here.
Tea Money
Centuries ago the inventive Chinese, who created the earliest banking system with coins and paper bank notes, found their currency had no value when trading with people in far away Mongolia and Tibet. Their solution to this problem was to turn their most valued product, tea, into bricks. The tea bricks were even scored so they could be broken to make change.
The tea “money" manufactured in Southern China is made of leaves and stalks of the tea plant, aromatic herbs and ox blood. It is sometimes bound together with yak dung. Tea is compressed into bricks of various sizes and stamped with a value that varies depending upon the quality of the tea. It usually increases as the bricks circulate farther from the tea producing country. The natives of Siberia prefer tea-money to metallic coins because of lung diseases prevalent in their severe climate, and they regard brick tea not only as a refreshing beverage but also as a medicine against coughs and colds.
The tea bricks could be sold as a whole brick or in parts. You'd take a knife and break or scrapeoff bits to sell or use. The tea was pressed into neat, ornate bricks to make it easier to handle and to prevent spoilage. Tea stored in buildings or ships had a tendency to spoil if moisture were nearby or if it got wet. This was a way to keep it drier. Most other goods were shipped in barrels, but tea came in chests.
Most of the brick tea was made in China and carried by camel and yak caravans to the distant lands of Tibet, Mongolia and Siberia. Although this tea was used as a form of money during transit, when it reached Russia it was used for a beverage by the Russian army, tourists, hunters and sportsmen because of its convenient form. For that reason the bricks inscribed in Russian for use there were always of the highest quality and today are the scarcest because they were rarely preserved in their original form.