Mission US: Spirit of a Nation

FAIN: MN-290271-23

WNET (New York, NY 10019-7416)
Sandra Sheppard (Project Director: June 2022 to present)

Production of an online game using the history of the Apalachee as a case study to interrogate Indigenous experiences in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Florida. 

Mission US: Spirit of a Nation is an online learning game about the Apalachees, an Indigenous people from northwestern Florida, spanning the 1500s to the mid-1600s. The eighth installment of Mission US, WNET’s award-winning series of free classroom games on American history, it will enrich the teaching and learning of Early American history in middle schools. As players progress through the game narrative, they will take on the roles of Apalachee youths of different periods and interact with contemporary experts studying Apalachee history. The story of the Apalachees offers a compelling perspective on Indigenous, as well as Spanish, experiences in North America. Spirit of a Nation will develop young people’s knowledge of how American Indigenous communities persisted and adapted during early encounters with Europeans, and of how this past is researched, interpreted, and remembered.