Home / Hands-on activities / South Dakota's Story: Mount Rushmore, Lakota & Badlands

Social studies activity

South Dakota's Story: Mount Rushmore, Lakota & Badlands

Somewhere in South Dakota, a whole mountain is being carved into the shape of a man on a horse — and it has been under construction for over 75 years and still isn't finished! It is called the Crazy Horse Memorial, and it honors a famous Lakota leader. Notice how gigantic it will be — the horse's head alone is bigger than all four faces on Mount Rushmore put together!

Hands OnAbout 25 minutesScreen-freeParent help expected

Materials and setup

How this changes by age

Pre-K (ages 3–4)

Somewhere in South Dakota, a whole mountain is being carved into the shape of a man on a horse — and it has been under construction for over 75 years and still isn't finished! It is called the Crazy Horse Memorial, and it honors a famous Lakota leader. Notice how gigantic it will be — the horse's head alone is bigger than all four faces on Mount Rushmore put together!

Difficulty 1 of 3

Steps

  1. Look at pictures of the Crazy Horse Memorial and Mount Rushmore side by side. Which one looks bigger to you?
  2. Point at each of the four faces on Mount Rushmore and wonder aloud: 'Why would someone carve a whole face on a mountain?'
  3. Draw a mountain using a big triangle on your paper.
  4. Draw a face peeking out of your mountain — give it big eyes, a wide nose, and a serious expression.
  5. Ask a grown-up: 'Who is the most important person YOU would put on a mountain?'

Learning objectives

  • Wonder at the enormous scale of human-made mountain carvings
  • Notice that different people are honored by different monuments
  • Ask why certain people are considered important enough to carve in stone

Kindergarten (ages 5–6)

Here is something surprising: the four presidents on Mount Rushmore were chosen to represent 150 years of American history — but the Lakota Sioux people call the Black Hills 'He Sapa,' meaning 'heart of everything that is.' Both groups love the same mountains, but for completely different reasons. Can you hold both ideas at once? And here is a Badlands fact that will amaze you: the fossils in Badlands National Park are 75 million years old — from a time when dinosaurs walked across South Dakota!

Difficulty 2 of 3

Steps

  1. Look at a picture of Mount Rushmore and then a picture of the Black Hills with pine trees and no carvings. Which looks more beautiful to you?
  2. Draw a big mountain on your paper. On ONE HALF, carve in presidential faces. On the OTHER HALF, draw the mountain as it looked before — just rocks and trees and sky.
  3. Give each side a label: 'American Monument' and 'Sacred Black Hills.'
  4. Write or dictate one feeling word for each side. Then talk: Can a mountain be both things at once?
  5. If YOU had a favorite place — your backyard, a park — what would you feel if someone changed it forever?

Learning objectives

  • Identify Mount Rushmore as a monument in the Black Hills of South Dakota
  • Understand that the Black Hills are sacred to the Lakota Sioux people
  • Compare the feelings two different groups might have about the same place
  • Retell why the same mountain means different things to different people

Early elementary (ages 6–8)

In 1868, the U.S. government signed the Fort Laramie Treaty promising the Black Hills to the Lakota Sioux 'for as long as the rivers run and the eagle flies.' Six years later, in 1874, gold was discovered. The government tried to buy the land. The Lakota said no. So the government took it. In 1980 — over 100 years later — the Supreme Court ruled this was ILLEGAL and offered the Lakota $106 million. The Lakota refused the money. They want the land back, not payment. That unclaimed money, with interest, has now grown past $2 billion. It just sits there. Meanwhile, the Badlands contain fossils from 75 million years ago, Wall Drug put up so many highway signs it became one of South Dakota's biggest attractions, and the Crazy Horse Memorial will be the world's largest mountain sculpture when finished.

Difficulty 2 of 3

Steps

  1. Create a timeline with these exact events: Fort Laramie Treaty signed (1868) → Gold discovered in Black Hills (1874) → U.S. takes the land (1877) → Mount Rushmore carving begins (1927) → Supreme Court rules taking was illegal, offers $106 million (1980) → Lakota still refuse the money (today). Draw each event as a small picture above its date.
  2. Draw a scales-of-justice: on one side write 'Fort Laramie Treaty Promise.' On the other side write 'Gold Rush.' Which side do you think weighed more for the U.S. government in 1874? Which SHOULD have weighed more?
  3. Write 2-3 sentences explaining: Why would the Lakota refuse over $1 billion dollars? What does that tell you about what they truly want?
  4. Connection challenge: Can you name another group of people in American history whose land or property was taken and never fully returned?

Learning objectives

  • Sequence the Fort Laramie Treaty, gold rush, forced land seizure, and Supreme Court ruling on a timeline
  • Explain why the Lakota refusal of over $2 billion in compensation is historically significant
  • Analyze a cause-and-effect chain: treaty broken → legal ruling → unresolved present
  • Connect South Dakota's history to broader patterns of Indigenous land rights

Upper elementary (ages 8–10)

In 1980, the Supreme Court ruled 8-1 that the U.S. government had illegally seized the Black Hills from the Lakota Sioux in 1877, violating the Fort Laramie Treaty of 1868. The Court offered $106 million in compensation. Rather than a single unified vote, each of the constituent Sioux tribes separately rejected the payment — and that refusal has held for over 40 years. Their shared position: 'The Black Hills are not for sale.' The money — still unclaimed — has grown with interest and now exceeds $2 billion. Meanwhile, Mount Rushmore sits carved into those same hills, completed in 1941. The Crazy Horse Memorial, begun nearby in 1948, remains unfinished. Two monuments. One mountain range. A legal ruling no one acted on. What does justice look like here — and who decides?

Difficulty 3 of 3

Steps

  1. Read about the Fort Laramie Treaty of 1868 and its key promises. Then read about the 1874 gold rush and the 1877 seizure. Create a two-column chart: 'What the U.S. promised' vs. 'What the U.S. did.'
  2. Research the 1980 Supreme Court ruling (United States v. Sioux Nation of Indians). Write a paragraph explaining the ruling in your own words — what did the court find, and why did the Lakota still refuse the money?
  3. The Dilemma: Your community is struggling. Real money is being offered — enough to build schools, clinics, and homes your people genuinely need right now. But accepting means permanently giving up your legal claim to a place that has been your home for generations. Once you sign, the agreement is final and there's no going back. Do you take the practical help your community needs today, or hold out on principle for what was rightfully yours? This is the real choice that faced the Lakota Sioux tribes in 1980, when the U.S. Supreme Court offered $106 million in compensation for the Black Hills — land the Court itself ruled had been taken illegally. Each of the constituent tribes separately rejected the payment, and that refusal has continued for more than 40 years. Write a one-page argument from the perspective of a Lakota leader making that decision, anticipating the strongest counterargument.
  4. On a map of South Dakota, label: the Black Hills, Pine Ridge Reservation, Mount Rushmore, Crazy Horse Memorial, Badlands National Park, Missouri River, and Pierre (capital).
  5. Write a persuasive essay: Should the U.S. government return at least a portion of the Black Hills to the Lakota? Address: legal precedent, practical obstacles, and what 'justice' means 150 years later. Use at least three historical facts.
  6. Cross-state connection: Wyoming's Wind River Reservation involves similar treaty disputes with the Shoshone and Arapaho. Does the same argument apply there?
  7. The Crazy Horse Memorial has been carved since 1948 and is funded entirely by visitor donations and ticket sales (no government money). Look up current admission prices and estimated annual visitors. Estimate yearly revenue, then calculate: at that rate, how many more years of income would it take to raise $50 million for the next carving phase? Would you run it as a nonprofit or a business, and why?
  8. Mount Rushmore was carved by stonemasons using dynamite for 90% of the rock removal and hand chisels for the fine details. Draw a sculptor dangling in a bosun's chair on a cliff face and label the tools: drill, dynamite charge, chisel, safety rope. Then calculate: if 450,000 tons of rock were removed over 14 years, about how many tons per year was that? Sketch one safety improvement you would add.

Learning objectives

  • Evaluate the Fort Laramie Treaty violation using primary legal and historical evidence
  • Analyze the Lakota refusal of over $2 billion as a principled political position, not just symbolic protest
  • Construct a persuasive argument about Indigenous land rights using evidence and counterargument
  • Connect South Dakota's specific case to national patterns of treaty violation and Indigenous sovereignty

Safety and evidence note

Read the full activity before beginning. An adult should supervise tools, heat, food, outdoor work, movement, and experiments as appropriate. Completion records that the activity was done; the child’s explanation, work sample, photo, or demonstration is stronger evidence of learning than a completion check alone.

Related social studies activities

Advanced Map Skills

Learn what maps are! Follow a simple treasure map around your house or yard. Maps show us where things are.

Alabama's Story: Cotton, Civil Rights & Red Hills

Did you know that one woman sitting down on a bus helped change America forever? Rosa Parks sat down in Alabama — and the whole country stood up. And Alabama is also home to NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville — where scientists designed the Saturn V rocket that sent people to the Moon! Ten years after Rosa Parks's bus protest, thousands of people marched together across a bridge in Selma, Alabama to ask for the right to vote. Let's draw that bridge!

Alaska's Story: Glaciers, Gold Rush & Seward's Folly

Alaska is so gigantic that if you put it on top of the rest of the United States, it would stretch from Florida all the way to California! And it has rivers made of ice — called glaciers — that move SO slowly you can't see them move. Let's build an icy Alaska scene!

American History Timeline

Color an American flag together — count the 13 stripes and 50 stars! Then wave it and sing a patriotic song.

Browse all 575 activities · Explore course syllabi