Learning Objectives

Visit history with your students. As they question people and collect documents, they build the evidence-based judgment they need for history—and for an AI-shaped world.

Overview

History education is not simply learning what happened; it is learning how to ask worthwhile questions, locate and compare sources, interpret evidence in context, recognize uncertainty, and construct defensible explanations. Those habits matter even more in a world where generative AI can quickly produce polished prose, plausible historical voices, and convincing images without doing the human work of historical judgment. Inquiry-based learning gives students practice evaluating claims instead of merely accepting answers.

In Running Reality, students enter a historical setting, question people with different experiences, and bring documents back to the classroom to corroborate what they heard. Teachers can then guide students to decide which accounts are supported, what remains unknown, and how new evidence should change an interpretation—the expertise students need to use AI as a tool rather than a substitute for learning.

Lesson plan classroom use

Free-form classroom use

Sample Activities

These activities connect existing Running Reality scenes to common social studies research skills.

Learning Objective	Questions to Investigate	Sample Activity
Compare a public statement with personal accounts of the same situation.	How does President McKinley's speech compare with the soldiers' descriptions of Camp Alger? Which details are confirmed, contradicted, or omitted by another source?	Visit Camp Alger during President McKinley's 1898 visit. Talk to the President and soldiers, collect the speech and letters home, and use evidence from both to describe conditions in the camp.
Explain a historical decision using evidence available to people at the time.	What did the delegates know on the morning of July 4, 1776? What dangers did they believe ratifying the Declaration would create?	Meet six members of the Second Continental Congress outside Independence Hall before they go inside to ratify the Declaration of Independence. Compare their reasons and concerns, then explain one delegate's decision using the conversation and a document.
Compare accounts of one event from people serving in different roles.	What did generals, soldiers, and doctors experience during the First Battle of Bull Run? How did each person's responsibilities affect what they knew and considered important?	Interview people in military and medical roles at Bull Run. Identify two points on which their accounts agree or disagree, and support the comparison with documents discovered in the scene.
Explain how a military event affected civilians with different circumstances.	How did the battle affect people who lived and worked nearby? How did being white, free Black, or enslaved affect a person's choices and risks?	At Bull Run, talk with white and free Black farmers and an enslaved woman. Use their accounts and related documents to explain one way the battle extended beyond the armies fighting it.
Use people, places, and documents together to describe how a historical community worked.	What did businesses such as the Williams Theater provide for Greenwood residents? What can business owners and records reveal about Greenwood before the violence and fires of 1921?	Visit Black Wall Street before the 1921 destruction, talk with two Black entrepreneurs about their businesses, and explore the Williams Theater. Combine details from the conversations, setting, and available documents into a short profile of the community.
Adapted from U.S. College Board and Common Core standards.

We hope you find that Running Reality is a good fit for your classroom and that these techniques will help you integrate it easily. We understand that you need to ensure both that any tools you use fit into the overall learning structure provided by you or your school or university, and that they are fun and easy and clear for your students to use. We hope you will share any tips or techniques that you develop.

Practical advice at FreeTech4Teachers

Resources at the American Historical Association

Examples for teaching with Minecraft