1. How do we learn about events if we weren’t there? How do we know what happened in the past?

2. How do we know what happened in the past? How do we learn about events if we weren’t there? In your table groups, take the next 4 minutes to discuss these questions and write down your ideas.

3. Questions: How do we know what happened in the past? How do we learn about events if we weren’t there? Our answers:

4. Questions: How do we know what happened in the past? How do we learn about events if we weren’t there? A historian’s answers: Primary Sources Secondary Sources

5. Are accounts of the past created by people writing about events after they have happened Are what historians (and History Day participants) create Secondary Sources Books/Textbooks Encyclopedias Articles Websites

6.  Provide an introduction to a topic  Provide historical/broader context for a topic  Show how has a topic been interpreted by other historians  Provide hints on where to find primary evidence  Provide information which enables historians to make sense of primary sources Secondary Sources

7. Primary Sources:  Are left behind by participants or observers  Make personal connections to the past  Are evidence used by historians to support their interpretation of the past

8. Primary Sources: Published materials: Books (including memoirs), magazines, and newspapers contemporary to the event

9. Primary Sources: Unpublished materials: Diaries, letters, manuscripts

10. Primary Sources: Records: Government documents, census data, birth certificates, organizational minutes, business reports

11. Primary Sources: Images: Photographs, film, art and posters, advertisements, maps

12. Primary Sources: Audio: Oral Histories Interviews Recordings

13. Primary Sources: Artifacts: Buildings, Tombstones, Clothing

14. Think About It - Over the past week, what evidence have you left behind?

15. If someone wanted to find out about you from your garbage, what would they learn? What items would they find in your garbage? What does it say about you? What are the most interesting and/or revealing artifacts that they would find? What are the challenges of someone using just this method to find out about you?