1930s Resources

PBS offered a five-part series on the 1930s era. Episodes included "The Crash of 1929," "The Civilian Conservation Corps," "Hoover Dam," "Surviving the Dust Bowl," and "Seabisquit." The American Experience programs draw parallels between the 1930s and current political climate and include available online resources.

Another resource on the 1930s with a specific focus on the Dust Bowl is Rain: A Dust Bowl Story. The site includes an epic story of a young American farm family struggling through the hard times of the Depression Dust Bowl. New mini-episodes appear daily.

Cartoons and Comics

Several free (or nearly free) online tools are available for having students create cartoons. See the examples below:

• ComicLife: By Plasq, this application offers students an opportunity to create comic book style products. The software offers a free 30-day trial download. Click here for examples of educators' uses by grade.
• Toondoo: Toondoo is an easy-to-use and free cartoon strip generator. The resulting images are embeddable.
• Xtranormal: This free tool allows students to create animated and HTML-embeddable cartoons. Click here for student-generated examples.
  

To learn to use these tools, to see additional samples, or for links to similar tools, I recommend Learning Through the Funnies, a presentation by Brad Fountain. You may view the Discovery Educator's recording of his webinar by clicking here.