Third graders learned about Cherokee life, The Trail of Tears, and researching primary sources during a recent trip to the Tennessee State Library & Archives.
By Kyleen Shyer, Third Grade Teacher
In third grade social studies, students learn about the earliest Tennesseans through the Native American Tribes. Throughout the year, they travel to various places including the Tennessee State Museum and Mound Bottom State Archaeological Area.
As part of their social studies unit on Native Americans in Tennessee, third graders had the opportunity to travel to the Tennessee State Library & Archives for their new program, The Cherokee in Tennessee, 1500s-1839.
Students learned about primary and secondary documents, studied transcribed letters between John Ross and Andrew Jackson, and wrote on copies of maps to show how the size of the Cherokee Nation physically shrunk over time. Students worked with sources, including maps, letters, quotes, and images.
It was both a meaningful and powerful experience for the third-grade researchers.
Summer reading lists for all grades are shared at usn.org/reading, which was updated this week to include suggested reading materials for Lower Schoolers.
Last weekend, Collin Chan ’25 placed in the biomedical sciences category for his poster presentation at the National Junior Science and Humanities Symposium.
Aliza Ahmed '26, Uma Ehrig '26, Victor Peng '26, Ruchika Ramachandran '27, and Yvonne Wang '27 participated in the Asian Educators Alliance conference this year in Atlanta, Georgia.
USN Mission: University School of Nashville models the best educational practices. In an environment that represents the cultural and ethnic composition of Metropolitan Nashville, USN fosters each student’s intellectual, artistic, and athletic potential, valuing and inspiring integrity, creative expression, a love of learning, and the pursuit of excellence.