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Wisconsin: Our State, Our Story
About the Textbook
Delve into thousands of years of Wisconsin’s history, peoples, and cultures with this essential resource for social studies education. Geared for fourth grade but appropriate for curriculum use across upper elementary and middle school, the textbook introduces students to the state's defining events, people, and places through stories, interpretation, and primary sources. A teacher’s guide, student activities, and supplemental online resources help to round out the learning experience. Available in print and digital formats as well as a Spanish-language edition.
Why the Textbook?
- Advances social studies and literacy learning in support of state education standards.
- Offers evidenced-based history representing Wisconsin’s many communities.
- Presents history in a visually engaging and easily digestible format.
- Includes timelines, maps, hundreds of photos and illustrations, a glossary, and suggestions for further reading.
- A separate Teacher’s Edition provides additional instructional tools for educators.
- Supported by companion resources such as the Student Activity Guide and interactive whiteboards for classroom use.
- Assessments ready to download and customize.
- The textbook and student activities are also in Spanish-language editions
Explore The Textbook
Standards for Use with
Wisconsin: Our State, Our Story
Wisconsin Social Studies and English Language Arts Standards
Wisconsin: Our State, Our Story aligns with the following curriculum areas:
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Download documents that illustrate how the student textbook, teacher's edition, and student activities correlate to the Wisconsin Social Studies Standards and Wisconsin Standards for English Language Arts.
Look Inside Textbook Chapters!
Chapter 1
Connecting to Our State's Story
Chapter 1: Connecting to Our State's Story
- How Do We Tell Our State's Story?
- What Does It Mean to Think Like a Historian?
- What Kinds of Evidence Do Historians Use?
- How Do Historians Use Evidence to Write History?
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Chapter 2
A Place with a Past
Chapter 2: A Place with a Past
- A Landscape Shaped over Time: The Ice Age Trail
- Locating Wisconsin in the United States
- Locating Wisconsin in the World
- Using Longitude and Latitude
- Wisconsin Landforms
- The Ice Age in Wisconsin
- Glacial Landforms Today
- Wisconsin's Waterways
- Exploring Wisconsin's Five Regions: Identifying the Regions, Lake Superior Lowland
- Exploring Wisconsin's Five Regions: Northern Highland, Central Plain
- Exploring Wisconsin's Five Regions: Western Upland, Eastern Ridges and Lowlands
- Favorite Places in Wisconsin to Visit
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Chapter 3
Wisconsin's First People
Chapter 3: Wisconsin's First People
- Exploring Native People's History and Traditions
- Ways to Discover the Long-Ago Past
- Mammoths, Mastodons, and Earliest People
- Inventions for a New Age: The Archaic Tradition
- People of the Woodland: New Ways of Living
- The Mysterious Mississippian Tradition
- Early Wisconsin Farmers: The Oneota Tradition
- Communicating in Many Forms
- Changes over Thousands of Years
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Chapter 4
The Fur Trade Era: Exploration and Exchange
Chapter 4: The Fur Trade Era: Exploration and Exchange
- Exploring and Learning
- Native People near the Close of the Old Time
- Explorers from Europe Arrive
- Missionaries and Mapmakers
- Beavers Mean Business: The French Fur Trade
- Bringing Cultures Together
- From French to British Control
- Americans Take Over the Fur Trade
- From Forts to Settlement
- Changes over Two Hundred Years
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Chapter 5
From Indian Lands to Territory to Statehood
Chapter 5: From Indian Lands to Territory to Statehood
- Indian Lands Become American Lands
- Treaty Making
- Living on the Lead Frontier
- The Black Hawk War
- Measuring and Mapping Land to Sell
- Wisconsin Becomes a Territory
- Wisconsin Becomes the 30th State
- What Happens at the Wisconsin Capitol?
- Looking Back at Our State's Beginnings
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Chapter 6
Coming to Wisconsin: Immigration and Settlement
Chapter 6: Coming to Wisconsin: Immigration and Settlement
- Immigration and Migration: Then and Now
- Making the Journey
- A Stonemason in Cornwall, England, Comes to Mineral Point
- Free at Last
- A German Farmstead in Washington County
- From Finland to Bayfield County
- Lucky to Be in America
- Bringing Texas North to Wisconsin
- Mai Ya's Long Journey from Thailand to Wisconsin
- Looking Back at Immigration and Settlement in Wisconsin
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Chapter 7
Wisconsin and the Civil War
Chapter 7: Wisconsin and the Civil War
- Free States, Slave States, and Fugitive Slaves
- Abolitionists in Wisconsin
- The Civil War Comes to Wisconsin
- Wisconsin's Soldiers
- Two Stories
- Lives Changed
- Places to Remember the War
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Chapter 8
Lead, Soil, and Saw Dust, 1820-1914
Chapter 8: Lead, Soil, and Saw Dust, 1820-1914
- A Land Rich in Natural Resources
- Getting the Minerals Out
- Farming to Feed the Family
- From One Crop to Many Crops and Many Animals
- Learning about Farming in the Past
- We Become a Dairy State
- From Milking to Marketing
- Timber!
- From the Woods to the Mills
- Lumber, Pulp, and Paper
- Learning More about Mining, Farming, and Logging
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Chapter 9
Transportation and Industry Change Wisconsin
Chapter 9: Transportation and Industry Change Wisconsin
- Wisconsin's Changing Landscape
- Shipping by Water: From Schooners to Steamers
- Maritime Archaeology
- Shipping by Land: Railroads
- Big Industry Leads to Bigger Cities
- The Growth of Milwaukee
- Engineers and Entrepreneurs
- Comparing and Contrasting Wisconsin's Top Industries
- A New World for Workers
- Progressives and Positive Change
- Turning Points in Transportation and Industry
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Chapter 10
Good Times, Hard Times, and Better Times
Chapter 10: Good Times, Hard Times, and Better Times
- Changes in Ways of Living
- New Century, New Roads
- Vacations for Some
- World War I
- The Great Depression: Looking for Work and Making Do
- World War II
- Peacetime brings Growth and Change
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Chapter 11
New Opportunities, New Challenges
Chapter 11: New Opportunities, New Challenges
- Wisconsin and the World
- Fighting Communism and the Korean War
- Returning Home to the Suburbs
- Protecting Our Environment
- Professional Sports in Wisconsin
- Outdoor Life
- Struggles and Protests for Equal Rights
- Vietnam and Protests
- The Gulf War and 9/11
- Challenges, Changes, and Championships
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Chapter 12
A Place with a Future
Chapter 12: A Place with a Future
- Taking Care of Our State's Story
- Saving Our Places and Our Spaces
- Protecting Wisconsin's Story
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Edición en Español
Spanish-Language Edition
Wisconsin: Nuestro Estado, Nuestra Historia
Nuestro libro de texto definitivo sobre la historia del estado también está disponible en una edición en español, Wisconsin: Nuestro Estado, Nuestra Historia. Todos los componentes del libro de texto y de la guía de actividades para estudiantes han sido traducidos al español, incluidos el texto, los mapas, las líneas de tiempo y los pies de foto.
¡Compra ahora!Digital Edition
The Wisconsin: Our State, Our Story student textbook is available as a digital edition in two format options: a protected, fixed-layout PDF, which follows the same layout as the print textbook; or a Chromebook-optimized version with resizable text and images. For information on which format is best for your students, download this guide.
Please note that all digital textbook licenses purchased under one access code must be assigned to the same digital format (PDF or Chromebook-optimized); it is not possible to assign some to one and the rest to the other.
Download Guide
I’ve always loved this curriculum. It’s comprehensive and uses so many primary sources for the students to become historians and ask questions about the objects and photos.
Student Activity Guide
Our Student Activity Guide enhances the learning experience with hands-on activities and primary source materials that allow students to dive deeper into Wisconsin stories and history.
Learn More!
Download your free poster!
Thinking Like a Historian
“Thinking Like a Historian” is the framework for the state history textbook.
The book Thinking Like a Historian: Rethinking History and Instruction offers an inquiry-based framework for teaching and learning history using practical examples and classroom activities. This free, downloadable poster highlights the framework’s main principles and helps students learn to think like historians. Display it in your classroom today!
Also available for download in a Spanish-language version.
Download the PosterMeet the Authors and Contributors
Wisconsin: Our State, Our Story was developed in collaboration with classroom teachers, curriculum coordinators, history scholars, and other education specialists to ensure a rigorous and user-friendly textbook for a wide range of students. We appreciate their invaluable contributions!
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