Our final Social Studies project for this year was a case study of a Virginia Indian tribe. We wanted students to learn about the peoples who have been in this area for thousands of years and understand that each tribe is different. For the final product, students wrote a top ten list indicating the top ten things you should know about this tribe. They also designed an annotated illustration to go along with their top ten lists. We were very impressed with their work.

One of our students who studied the Rappahanock Tribe reflected:

"This particular tribe and many other tribes are facing a challenge that is that they do not have enough money. This is because of the white settlers pretty much completely. Many of them live on their reservation but if they did not many of them would be having a tough time finding shelter or even not able to find shelter. Some of them are facing the problem of other people judging them for their race and that they are a Native American. One member said they were in a gas station and going to the bathroom but the station said white on one door and black on the other and they did not know where to go. I think that people do not recognize Native Americans in general nearly as much as they should. Sometimes it seems like people think that Native Americans don’t have feelings. Sometimes people make it seem like Native Americans aren’t even human which is completely false and totally not true. In a couple of the videos we watched in class some people acted like Native American were not humans. When I heard that I thought why don’t they think white people aren’t humans. I think they are facing these challenges because when the white settlers came they acted as if they had lots of power and they were very mean to the Native people. I think these things are happening because of this. If when the white settlers came the Native people acted like the white people I think the people would be saying these rude comments and acting like this to the white people."