Educators Portal

Welcome to the Educators Portal

Teachers, librarians, and parents looking for culturally and geographically relevant materials for learning about the Marianas, look no further. This portal was created with you in mind!

Lesson Plans

Connecting past to present and future. Guampedia’s Lesson Plans help teachers make our island’s history and culture come alive in the classroom. All the lesson plans are free and contain links to additional online resources.

The initial Guampedia Lesson Plan Project was developed in partnership with local educators to incorporate Guam’s rich history and culture into our island’s many, diverse classroom settings. By working together, we can help students connect Guam’s past to its future. Visit the Lesson Plans page here.

Lesson Plans for Culturally Sustaining Education: The Micronesian Context. A group of Guam educators participated in a three-day workshop in July 2018 to gain a deeper knowledge of Micronesia, learn about culturally sustaining teaching strategies and instructional resources specific to Micronesian cultures, expand their professional networks to include other GDOE teachers and educators from the region, reflect on their own professional praxis, and develop culturally sustaining teaching materials and resources including 15 lesson plans. Visit the entry with lesson plans here.

Guam Museum Materials

Teacher’s Guide

Guide to teaching with the Guam Museum. This guide is a comprehensive overview of the Guam Museum’s history, the Hagåtña building and permanent exhibit, I Hinanao-Ta Nu Manaotao Tåno’-I CHamoru Siha: The Journey of the CHamoru People. This document presents a brief history of the Museum from conception to fruition in 2016 for the Festival of Pacific Arts (FestPac) when it first opened to the public. The facility’s architect, Andrew “Andy” Laguaña, shares inspiration for the Museum’s beautiful design. In this document teachers are given a map, discussion topics and an overview of the permanent exhibit.

Download the Teacher’s Guide here.

Guam Museum Activity Sheets

Activities for teaching at the Guam Museum. Guampedia created a collection of activities for young visitors to the Guam Museum’s permanent exhibit, I Hinanao-Ta Nu Manaotao Tåno’-I CHamoru Siha: The Journey of the CHamoru People. The activities appear in order of grade-level, kindergarten – high school. They also vary in subject from math to art.

Download all the Activity Sheets here or visit the Guam Museum’s Educational Materials entry for grade-levels or individual activity sheets here.

Historical Timelines

Guampedia Timeline. Guam, the largest and southernmost of the Mariana Islands chain, has a unique and complex cultural history. Located in the Western Pacific in the geographic region known as Micronesia, Guam is well known for its strategic military and economic position between Asia and the North American continent, but is less known for its remarkable history and resilient people.

Inhabited for more than 3,500 years, the Marianas are home to one of the oldest Pacific Island cultures. Archaeological evidence indicates that the Marianas Islands were one of the first places to be settled by seafaring peoples, possibly from Island Southeast Asia. Although it is uncertain whether the islands were settled in waves of migration or all at once, the Mariana Islands appear to have been continuously occupied by people who shared the same culture and language that eventually became known as CHamoru.

For learning purposes we’ve broken Guam’s history into seven eras – Ancient, Spanish, US Naval, World War II, Post War, Guamanian and Contemporary.

Learn about the 3,500 years of Guam history here or view our timeline here.

Ancient Guahan and the World! Guampedia created a timeline showing the Ancient Era (1,500 BC to 1695 AD) of the Marianas juxtaposed with events in world history to help students experience the depth of our history. The Marianas were the first remote Pacific islands to be settled after all, long before Polynesia.

View our Ancient Timeline here.

Activity Book for Young Children

Stories, worksheets and fun activities. A Guam Experience Activity Book “Cultural and Silebråsion Activities for Young Children” was created by Eloise Sanchez for the Guam Department of Education in 1991 and adapted by Guampedia. This 34 page activity book contains CHamoru and Guahan relevant materials to use in the classroom or at home.

View the activity book in our Issuu site here.

Life on Guam Workbooks

Island ecology and social studies materials. Life on Guam was a 1977 project to produce relevant class, lab, and field materials in ecology and social studies for Guam middle and senior high schools. The project’s mission, funded with federal education grants, was to “ultimately graduate citizens who are knowledgeable and conscientious about environmental concerns of Guam and the rest of the world.” Guampedia obtained permission to e-publish the Life on Guam series from the Guam Department of Education.

View list of workbooks here or view workbooks in our Issuu site here.

Guam Fish and Wildlife Fact Sheets

Guam’s Fish and Wildlife Fact Sheets made 80 fact sheets contain images and provide text describing the island’s species that live on land and in the ocean surrounding the Marianas. Each one names the species or organism in CHamoru and English.

Some sheets indicate if the species is introduced to the islands, if it is endangered or if it is an extinct species.The sheets also have photos and/or illustrations showing the species in its natural habitat. They provide information on the origins, habitat, diet and season for harvesting or hunting.

View the fact sheets here.

Guampedia Index of Entries

A comprehensive listing of Guampedia entries. Guampedia is a community project that highlights the unique CHamoru heritage and history of Guam and the Mariana Islands. Through peer-reviewed entries and accompanying media, Guampedia provides an important educational and informational resource for Guam teachers and schoolchildren who want a richer understanding of our island and its people.

Work to develop the entries for Guampedia began in 2005. Grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities, Guam Council on the Arts and Humanities Agency, Guam Preservation Trust, Gannett Foundation, and Bank of Guam paid for numerous content development projects over the years.

Content for the website was developed by a slew of professional writers, researchers, cultural specialists and other scholars who provided expertise for putting together information that could be accessed easily by a general audience. More than 140 people have been a part of creating Guampedia to date, doing research, writing, peer reviewing, fact checking or copy editing the Guampedia entries and media. New materials are continually being added to Guampedia.

As of November 2023, Guampedia had over 1,200 entries online with 4,400 photographs, numerous video and sound clips and hundreds of e-publications. We’ve created an index of the entries made with educators in mind to make lesson planning more convenient.

Download the Guampedia index of entries here.