D2.Civ.5.9-12: Evaluating How Well Citizens and Institutions Solve Public Problems
In plain English: D2.Civ.5.9-12 is the C3 Framework civics indicator for grades 9-12 that asks students to evaluate how effectively citizens and institutions address social and political problems at the local, state, tribal, national or international level. Students judge actions by evidence of results, reach, enforcement, costs and durability, not by good intentions alone.
Evaluate citizens' and institutions' effectiveness in addressing social and political problems at the local, state, tribal, national, and/or international level.
C3 Framework for Social Studies (NCSS) · Dimension 2: Applying Disciplinary Concepts and Tools · Discipline: Civics · Civic and Political Institutions · Official standard
D2.Civ.5.9-12 asks students to evaluate how effectively citizens and institutions address social and political problems at the local, state, tribal, national or international level. Evaluation needs criteria, so the lesson gives students a five-part effectiveness scorecard: results, reach, enforcement, costs and side effects, and durability (Diagram 2).
The main case is the campaign to stop the killing of egrets and other birds for hat feathers, 1886-1920 (Diagram 1). Citizens formed Audubon societies, organized boycotts and paid wardens; states passed their own laws; Congress, a treaty with Great Britain and the Supreme Court finally acted at the national and international level. Students read William T. Hornaday's 1913 account of the Florida wardens (Source 1) and of New York's plumage law (Source 2), and Justice Holmes's opinion in Missouri v. Holland (1920) (Source 3). The homework applies the same scorecard to an invented local problem with crash data (Source 4).
Learning Objectives
By the end of this lesson, students will be able to:
Apply explicit criteria (results, reach, enforcement, costs, durability) to judge the effectiveness of a citizen action or an institution
Distinguish outputs, such as a law passed, from outcomes, such as a problem reduced
Explain why a problem may require action at a different level, from local to international, using a primary source
Use before-and-after data to judge results, and identify a limit of the data
Write an evaluative judgment that weighs evidence and acknowledges another reasonable verdict
Prior Knowledge Required
Students should already be comfortable with:
Explaining the structure of the U.S. federal system and the levels of government D2.Civ.5.6-8
Assessing how well an author's reasoning and evidence support a claim RH.9-10.8
"A school club spends a month collecting 500 signatures to get a vending machine with healthier snacks. The machine arrives, but a year later almost no one buys from it. Was the club effective? Write your answer and the evidence you would want before deciding."
Collect three or four answers. Students usually split between "yes, they got what they asked for" and "no, nothing changed." Name the distinction: effort and outputs (signatures, meetings, a law passed) are not the same as outcomes (the problem actually getting smaller). D2.Civ.5.9-12 asks students to evaluate the effectiveness of both citizens (individuals and voluntary groups) and institutions (lasting public bodies such as legislatures, courts, agencies and treaties) in addressing social and political problems. Today's case: how Americans tried to stop the killing of egrets for hat feathers between 1886 and 1920.
Direct Instruction15-20 minutes
Part 1: The scorecard. Show Diagram 2. Five criteria turn "effective" into something students can argue with evidence: results, reach (whether the actor's level, local, state, tribal, national or international, matches the size of the problem), enforcement, costs and side effects, and durability. Stress that the scorecard is applied to each actor separately, and that a low score for one actor can explain why another level stepped in.
Part 2: The problem. In the late 1800s, fashionable women's hats used the long breeding plumes of egrets, called aigrettes, along with feathers and whole skins of many other birds. Hunters shot the adults at their nesting colonies, where the young were left to starve. Show Diagram 1 and walk through who acted. Then work the four examples, which use events from the timeline that the sources do not cover.
Institution, national level: the Lacey Act (1900)
The Lacey Act made it a federal crime to ship across state lines birds or game killed in violation of a state's law. Score its reach.
Result: Reach: 1 of 2. The act used national power over interstate shipping, which no single state had, so a hunter could no longer sell illegal plumes simply by sending them to another state. But it only backed up state laws: where a state allowed plume hunting, the act did nothing. Its effectiveness depended on the weakest state law, which points to the need for a national rule of its own.
Citizens: the Massachusetts Audubon Society (1896)
Harriet Hemenway and her cousin Minna Hall held teas in Boston to persuade women to stop wearing feathered hats, and founded the Massachusetts Audubon Society. Score its results and costs.
Result: Results: 1 of 2. A boycott can shrink demand, and the society grew and pressed for state laws, but there is no count of hats not bought, so the evidence is indirect. Costs and side effects: 2 of 2. Membership was voluntary and cost the public nothing. A fair evaluation separates what citizens achieved directly from what they achieved by pushing institutions to act.
Institution, national level: the Weeks-McLean Act (1913)
In 1913 Congress declared migratory birds under federal protection. In 1914 and 1915 two federal district courts ruled the law unconstitutional, saying wild birds belonged to the states. Score its durability.
Result: Durability: 0 of 2. A law that courts strike down protects nothing, however good its aims. Supporters changed the method rather than giving up: a treaty with Great Britain (for Canada) in 1916 and a new act in 1918 to carry it out. Evaluating an institution includes asking whether it acted within its legal powers.
Measuring results: before and after, with a warning
Invented data: a county counted illegal dumping sites of 48, 52 and 44 in the three years before a citizens' hotline and county cleanup crew began, and 30, 27 and 33 in the three years after. Compute the change and judge the evidence.
Result: Before: (48 + 52 + 44) / 3 = 48 sites a year. After: (30 + 27 + 33) / 3 = 30. Change: (48 - 30) / 48 = 37.5% fewer sites. Warning: a hotline makes it easier to report dumping, so if anything the count after may overstate the problem; the real drop could be larger. Always ask whether the way the data were collected changed along with the policy.
Part 3: The national and international level. Read Source 3 with the class. Define the Tenth Amendment (powers not delegated to the United States, nor prohibited to the states, are reserved to the states or the people) and a bill in equity (a lawsuit asking a court to order someone to stop an action). Explain that the Constitution makes treaties part of "the supreme Law of the Land" and that the Supreme Court decided the case 7-2 in 1920. Ask students to mark, as they read, every sentence that judges how well the states had done.
1This is a bill in equity brought by the State of Missouri to prevent a game warden of the United States from attempting to enforce the Migratory Bird Treaty Act of July 3, 1918, c. 128, 40 Stat. 755, and the regulations made by the Secretary of Agriculture in pursuance of the same. The ground of the bill is that the statute is an unconstitutional interference with the rights reserved to the States by the Tenth Amendment, and that the acts of the defendant done and threatened under that authority invade the sovereign right of the State and contravene its will manifested in statutes. [...]
2On December 8, 1916, a treaty between the United States and Great Britain was proclaimed by the President. It recited that many species of birds in their annual migrations traversed certain parts of the United States and of Canada, that they were of great value as a source of food and in destroying insects injurious to vegetation, but were in danger of extermination through lack of adequate protection. It therefore provided for specified close seasons and protection in other forms, and agreed that the two powers would take or propose to their law-making bodies the necessary measures for carrying the treaty out. [...]
[...]
3The State as we have intimated founds its claim of exclusive authority upon an assertion of title to migratory birds, an assertion that is embodied in statute. No doubt it is true that as between a State and its inhabitants the State may regulate the killing and sale of such birds, but it does not follow that its authority is exclusive of paramount powers. To put the claim of the State upon title is to lean upon a slender reed. Wild birds are not in the possession of anyone; and possession is the beginning of ownership. The whole foundation of the State's rights is the presence within their jurisdiction of birds that yesterday had not arrived, tomorrow may be in another State and in a week a thousand miles away. [...]
[...]
4Here a national interest of very nearly the first magnitude is involved. It can be protected only by national action in concert with that of another power. The subject-matter is only transitorily within the State and has no permanent habitat therein. But for the treaty and the statute there soon might be no birds for any powers to deal with. We see nothing in the Constitution that compels the Government to sit by while a food supply is cut off and the protectors of our forests and our crops are destroyed. It is not sufficient to rely upon the States. The reliance is vain, and were it otherwise, the question is whether the United States is forbidden to act. We are of opinion that the treaty and statute must be upheld. [...]
Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Supreme Court of the United States, Missouri v. Holland, 252 U.S. 416 (1920), opinion of the Court (Source 3: paragraphs 1, 2, 6 and 8, in part) (1920). Public domain (published 1920). Source text.
Guided Practice15 minutes
Citizens and the state of Florida. Pairs read Source 1, by William T. Hornaday, director of the New York Zoological Park, writing in 1913 to win support for stronger laws. Remind students that he is an advocate: his numbers and judgments are evidence to weigh, not final verdicts. Glossary: "millinery" (the making and selling of women's hats), "rookery" (a nesting colony), "fauna" (the animals of a region), "commissioned" (given legal authority as officers).
1THE SNOWY EGRET AND AMERICAN EGRET, (Egretta candidissima and Herodias egretta).--These unfortunate birds, cursed for all time by the commercially valuable "aigrette" plumes that they bear, have had a very narrow escape from total extinction in the United States, despite all the efforts made to save them. The "plume-hunters" of the millinery trade have been, and still are, determined to have the last feather and the last drop of egret blood. In an effort to stop the slaughter in at least one locality in Florida, Warden Guy Bradley was killed by a plume-hunter, who of course escaped all punishment through the heaven-born "sympathy" of a local jury.
[...]
2By 1908, the plume-hunters had so far won the fight for the egrets that Florida had been swept almost as bare of these birds as the Colorado desert.
3Until Mr. E.A. McIlhenny's egret preserve, at Avery Island, Louisiana, became a pronounced success, we had believed that our two egrets soon would become totally extinct in the United States. But Mr. McIlhenny has certainly saved those birds to our fauna. In 1892 he started an egret and heron preserve, close beside his house on Avery Island. By 1900 it was an established success. To-day 20,000 pairs of egrets and herons are living and breeding in that bird refuge, and the two egret species are safe in at least one spot in our own country.
[...]
4Three years ago, I think there were not many bird-lovers in the United States, who believed it possible to prevent the total extinction of both egrets from our fauna. All the known rookeries accessible to plume-hunters had been totally destroyed. Two years ago, the secret discovery of several small, hidden colonies prompted William Dutcher, President of the National Association of Audubon Societies, and Mr. T. Gilbert Pearson, Secretary, to attempt the protection of those colonies. With a fund contributed for the purpose, wardens were hired and duly commissioned. As previously stated, one of those wardens was shot dead in cold blood by a plume hunter. [...]
5Thus far the protective work of the Audubon Association has been successful. Now there are twenty colonies, which contain all told, about 5,000 egrets and about 120,000 herons and ibises which are guarded by the Audubon wardens. [...] To-day, the plume hunters who do not dare to raid the guarded rookeries are trying to study out the lines of flight of the birds, to and from their feeding-grounds, and shoot them in transit. Their motto is--"Anything to beat the law, and get the plumes." It is there that the state of Florida should take part in the war.
William T. Hornaday, Our Vanishing Wild Life, chapter V, the egret section (Source 1: the egrets of Florida and Louisiana) (1913). Public domain (published 1913). Source text.
Baseline. Prompt: which sentence tells you how bad things were before the Audubon wardens began? Teacher note: paragraph 2, "By 1908, the plume-hunters had so far won the fight for the egrets that Florida had been swept almost as bare of these birds as the Colorado desert." A baseline is needed before any claim about results.
Who paid. Prompt: who paid the wardens? Teacher note: "a fund contributed for the purpose" (paragraph 4), private money raised by the Audubon association, a citizens' group. The wardens were "duly commissioned," so citizens supplied the money while the state supplied the legal authority.
Facts and judgments. Prompt: find three words or phrases that show what Hornaday thinks of the plume trade, and one sentence that is a checkable fact. Teacher note: "unfortunate," "cursed for all time," the sarcastic "heaven-born 'sympathy'" and "in cold blood" are judgments; "In 1892 he started an egret and heron preserve" is a checkable fact. Evaluating effectiveness means separating the two.
Score it. Pairs fill in the scorecard for the Audubon wardens, with one quotation for each score, and compare with another pair. Expect disagreement about results; insist on evidence.
Independent Practice15 minutes
The state level. Each student reads Source 2, from a later chapter of the same book, and scores the New York plumage law on all five criteria. Context note: the Millinery Association was the hat makers' trade group, and "operatives" were factory workers. A game bird is a bird hunted for sport or food, such as a duck or a grouse. Students then write two sentences: one on what the law achieved inside New York, and one on what a state law could not do. The quiz uses Sources 1-4.
1It is entirely fitting that on this subject New York should send a message to London. New York is almost a Spotless Town in plume-free millinery, and London and Paris are the worst places in the world. We have cleaned house. [...]
2Here in New York (and also in New Jersey) no man may sell, own for sale or offer for sale the plumage of any wild American bird other than a game bird. More than that, the plumage of no foreign bird belonging to any bird family represented in the fauna of North America can be sold here! There are only a few kinds of improper "millinery" feathers that it is possible to sell here under the law. Thanks to the long and arduous campaign of the National Association of Audubon Societies, founded and for ten years directed by gallant William Dutcher, you now see on the streets of New York very, very little wild-bird plumage save that from game birds.
3[...] In New York and New Jersey, in Pennsylvania for everything save the sale of heron and egret plumes (a privilege obtained by a bunko game), in Massachusetts, and in many other of our States, the wild-birds'-plumage millinery business is dead. Two years ago, when the New York legislature refused to repeal the Dutcher law, the Millinery Association asserted, and brought a cloud of witnesses to Albany to prove, that the enforcement of the law would throw thousands of operatives out of employment.
[...]
4The law is in effect; and the aigrette business is dead in this state. Have any operatives starved, or been thrown out of employment? We have heard of none. They are now at work making very pretty hat ornaments of silk and ribbons, and gauze and lace; and "They are wearing them."
William T. Hornaday, Our Vanishing Wild Life, chapter XIII, "Extermination of Birds for Women's Hats" (Source 2: the New York plumage law) (1913). Public domain (published 1913). Source text.
Closure15-20 minutes
Back to the present. Introduce Source 4, an invented local scenario, as the homework text. Ask students to predict which actor, Safe Steps, the city council, the state or the sheriff, will score highest, and to name the evidence that would change their mind.
1Invented scenario, written for this page. Cedar Bend is a fictional town of about 40,000 people. Students at Cedar Bend Middle School cross Route 9, a four-lane state highway, at an intersection with no traffic signal. In 2021, after a seventh grader was hit by a car and badly hurt, a group of parents and students formed Safe Steps. Volunteers counted cars for two weeks, gathered 1,240 signatures on a petition and spoke at three city council meetings.
2The city council voted to ask the state transportation department, which controls Route 9, to install a signal. The state agreed but said its schedule allowed no construction until 2023. Safe Steps then asked the state for a lower school-zone speed limit, which took effect in 2022, and the county sheriff began patrolling the crossing during school hours that year. The signal, which cost $250,000 in state funds, opened in January 2023.
3Crashes at the intersection, from police reports: 2019, 11; 2020, 7; 2021, 12; 2022, 9; 2023, 5; 2024, 4; 2025, 6. Cedar Bend's schools held classes online for part of 2020. Some neighbors say the signal makes traffic back up for blocks at rush hour, and two shops near the corner report fewer customers.
SVHS (invented scenario written for this page), Cedar Bend's Dangerous Crossing (Source 4: invented scenario). Original passage written for this page.
Crashes at the Route 9 crossing, Cedar Bend (invented data from Source 4)
Year
Crashes
What was in place
2019
11
No signal
2020
7
No signal; schools partly online
2021
12
No signal; Safe Steps formed
2022
9
Lower speed limit, sheriff patrols
2023
5
Signal opens in January
2024
4
Signal
2025
6
Signal
Exit ticket: Name the actor in the egret case that you think was most effective and the criterion that matters most to your judgment. Then name one piece of evidence that would weaken your judgment.
Teacher note on the sources: Sources 1-3 are quoted exactly as published. Hornaday writes as a campaigner, with strong words ("bloody," "money-hungry desperadoes" in a sentence left out here) and some loose chronology: Guy Bradley was killed in 1905, years before the colonies Hornaday dates to "two years ago." A grand jury, not a trial jury, declined to indict the man accused of killing Bradley. A passage left out of Source 2 makes condescending remarks about servants; it is not needed for the lesson. In later decades egret numbers in the United States recovered, and the great egret became the symbol of the National Audubon Society. The lesson scores reasoning and evidence; students may reach different, well-supported verdicts.
Differentiation Strategies
For Struggling Students
Give the scorecard with sentence starters: "This scores ___ on results because ___ (Source __, paragraph __)."
Assign only three criteria (results, reach, enforcement) on the first pass, then add the other two
Pre-highlight in Source 3 the three sentences that judge the states
For Advanced Students
Read the dissenting tradition: research why Justices Van Devanter and Pitney may have dissented, and write the strongest state-sovereignty argument
Find one current problem that crosses borders and identify which level of government or international body addresses it, citing an official source
Compare the Lacey Act's approach (backing up state laws) with the 1918 act's approach (one national rule), using the scorecard
Assessment Guidance
What to Look For
Strong evaluations name the criterion, give a score and cite specific evidence, and they treat citizens and institutions separately before comparing them. Look for students who separate outputs from outcomes, notice that Hornaday is an advocate, and ask what a number is compared with. Watch for verdicts based only on intentions ("they meant well"), for treating a law's passage as proof that it worked, and for ignoring costs to people on the other side, such as the hat workers the Millinery Association spoke for.
02
Classroom Activities
3 Activities
1
Scorecard Gallery Walk
20 minGroups of 4
Each group scores one actor from the egret case on chart paper, using Diagram 2 and at least one quotation or fact per criterion. Groups then rotate, leaving a sticky note that agrees or disagrees with one score and gives a reason.
The Five Actors
The Audubon societies and their wardens (citizens; Source 1)
Florida's local justice system (institution, local and state; Source 1)
The New York legislature and its plumage law (institution, state; Source 2)
Congress and the 1916 treaty with Great Britain (institutions, national and international; Diagram 1 and Source 3)
The Supreme Court in Missouri v. Holland (institution, national; Source 3)
Discussion Questions
Which actor's score depended most on another actor's action? Explain the dependence.
Did any group score an actor highly on results but low on costs? Is that a fair trade?
Modification for a Shorter Class
Assign actors 1, 3 and 4 only, and score three criteria: results, reach and enforcement.
2
Structured Academic Controversy: Whose Job Was It?
20 minGroups of 4 (two pairs)
Question: Was national and international action necessary to save the egrets, or could citizens and the states have done the job? Pair A argues the case for citizens and states; Pair B argues the case for national and international action. Then the pairs switch sides, and finally the group writes the most accurate answer all four can support.
Evidence Each Side Can Use
Citizens and states: the voluntary colonies in Source 1; New York's law and the trade's collapse there (Source 2); Missouri's claim in Source 3, paragraph 1; the danger that national power overrides local choices.
National and international: the birds' migrations (Source 3, paragraphs 2 and 3); the gaps between state laws (Source 2); the failures in Florida (Source 1); the treaty with Great Britain, for Canada.
Steps
Pairs prepare (4 minutes) and present (3 minutes each) while the other pair takes notes.
Pairs restate the other side's case to its satisfaction, then switch sides and add one new point.
The group drops roles and writes a consensus statement, or a statement of what they still disagree about and why.
Discussion Questions
Which piece of evidence was hardest for the other side to answer?
Does your answer depend on which criterion you weigh most?
3
Match the Problem to the Level
15 minPairs
Pairs get 8 problem cards, all invented except card 8. For each, they choose the level or levels most able to address it (local, state, tribal, national or international), name one citizen action and one institution, and predict the weakest scorecard criterion.
The 8 Problem Cards
Potholes on the streets of one neighborhood
A drinking-water system on a reservation that needs repairs
An invasive mussel spreading through lakes in four neighboring states
A shortage of school bus drivers in one county
Litter in a city park after weekend events
A river polluted upstream in one state and used for drinking water downstream in another
A dangerous intersection on a state highway in a small town
Chemicals that thin the ozone layer, made and used in many countries (real: addressed by the Montreal Protocol of 1987)
Answer Guide for the Teacher
Local: 1, 4 (with the school district), 5. Tribal: 2, where the tribal government acts, often with federal agencies as partners. State or several states together, with national help: 3 and 6. State, with local input: 7. International: 8.
Accept other answers with a reason tied to reach: the level should be able to act everywhere the problem is.
Discussion Questions
Which cards fit more than one level? What happens when two levels share a problem?
For card 2, why might a tribal government be better placed than a state to act first?
03
Diagrams & Visual Aids
2 diagrams
Diagram 1: Saving the Egrets, 1886-1920
Timeline drawn to scale. Circles mark actions by citizens and private groups; squares mark actions by government institutions. The first Audubon Society was founded in 1886 and the Massachusetts Audubon Society in 1896. The Lacey Act (1900) banned shipping across state lines birds killed against state law; Pelican Island, Florida (1903), was the first federal bird reservation. The New York ban on selling native bird plumes dates from 1910. Congress passed the Weeks-McLean Act in 1913, and the treaty with Great Britain, for Canada, was signed in 1916 and carried out by the act of 1918, which the Supreme Court upheld in 1920.
Diagram 2: The Effectiveness Scorecard
Five criteria for judging how well a citizen action or an institution addresses a problem, each scored 0, 1 or 2 with evidence, for a total out of 10. Score citizens and institutions separately before comparing them.
04
Homework Assignment
~30 min
D2.Civ.5.9-12 Homework: Evaluating Cedar Bend's Response
Directions: Use Source 4 and the crash table in the Closure phase of the lesson plan. Show your arithmetic. For every judgment, name the scorecard criterion and the evidence.
Part 1: Results (Problems 1-3)
Compute the mean number of crashes per year for the four years without a signal (2019-2022) and for the three years with it (2023-2025), and the percent change between the two means.
Recompute the without-signal mean from Problem 1, leaving out 2020. Explain why a careful evaluator might do this, and how the percent change differs.
The year 2022 had a lower speed limit and patrols but no signal. What does the 2022 count suggest about how much of the drop the signal alone can claim? Explain one reason the evidence is still uncertain.
Part 2: Citizens and Institutions (Problems 4-6)
Score Safe Steps (citizens) on the five criteria, with one piece of evidence each, and give a total out of 10.
Score the state transportation department (an institution) on the five criteria, including the two-year wait, the cost and the complaints from neighbors and shops.
Write a paragraph of 6-8 sentences answering: "Who deserves more credit for the safer crossing, the citizens or the institutions?" Acknowledge the strongest point for the other answer.
Rubric
Criterion
Full Credit (2 pts)
Partial Credit (1 pt)
No Credit (0 pts)
Data Analysis
Means and percent changes correct, with work shown
One computational error
Two or more errors, or no work
Use of Criteria
Every score names a criterion and cites evidence
Scores given with general reasons
No criteria used
Limits of Evidence
Identifies a confound or measurement limit and explains its effect
Names a limit without explaining it
Treats the data as proof
Judgment
Clear verdict that weighs both citizens and institutions and answers a counterargument
Verdict without a counterargument
No verdict
05
Quiz: 20 Questions
Interactive, with answers
Instructions
Questions 1-3 and 15 use Source 1 (Hornaday on the Florida egrets) in Guided Practice. Questions 4-7 and 16 use Source 2 (the New York law) in Independent Practice. Questions 8-11 and 18 use Source 3 (Missouri v. Holland) in Direct Instruction. Questions 12-14 use Source 4 and its crash table in Closure. Questions 17, 19 and 20 use more than one source. Your score updates as you answer, and Reset quiz clears everything.
Multiple choice: pick an option to check it. Short answer: write your answer, then reveal the model answer.
0 of 20 answered · 0 correct
Question 1 of 20 · Multiple Choice
Hornaday's account of Warden Guy Bradley's death (Source 1, paragraph 1) is evidence for which evaluation?
Answer: A
Hornaday says the killer "escaped all punishment through the heaven-born 'sympathy' of a local jury": a local institution failed on enforcement. Choice B is contradicted by paragraph 5, where guarded colonies survive. Choice C is the opposite of the passage. Choice D gets the timeline wrong: federal protection came in 1913 and 1918 (Diagram 1).
Question 2 of 20 · Multiple Choice
Which actor does Hornaday credit with having "certainly saved those birds to our fauna" (Source 1, paragraph 3)?
Answer: D
The sentence is about E. A. McIlhenny, who started an egret preserve "close beside his house on Avery Island" in 1892: an individual citizen acting on his own land. Choice B is the group credited in paragraph 5 with guarding Florida colonies, a different effort. Choices A and C are institutions Hornaday does not credit in this paragraph.
Question 3 of 20 · Multiple Choice
In Source 1, paragraph 5, plume hunters begin shooting egrets "in transit" between guarded rookeries and feeding grounds. Which limit of the wardens' work does this reveal?
Answer: A
On the scorecard this is a problem of reach: guards at fixed colonies cannot follow birds across open country, which is why Hornaday says "It is there that the state of Florida should take part." Choices B and C are not in the source. Choice D contradicts the same paragraph, which counts about 5,000 egrets in the guarded colonies.
Question 4 of 20 · Multiple Choice
Under the New York law Hornaday describes in Source 2, which of these could still be sold legally in New York?
Answer: D
The law bans selling "the plumage of any wild American bird other than a game bird," so game-bird plumage was still legal. Choices A and B are wild American birds. Choice C fails the second rule: no foreign bird "belonging to any bird family represented in the fauna of North America" may be sold, and herons live in North America.
Question 5 of 20 · Multiple Choice
How does Hornaday answer the Millinery Association's warning that the law would cost thousands of jobs (Source 2, paragraphs 3 and 4)?
Answer: B
Hornaday asks "Have any operatives starved, or been thrown out of employment? We have heard of none," and says they now make ornaments "of silk and ribbons, and gauze and lace." Choice A misreads him: he denies the harm rather than accepting it. Choice C names evidence he does not give. Choice D twists the mention of Pennsylvania, which is about a loophole in its law, not about workers.
Question 6 of 20 · Multiple Choice
Which part of Hornaday's answer to the Millinery Association is weakest as evidence about the law's costs?
Answer: C
"We have heard of none" reports an absence of complaints reaching Hornaday, an advocate for the law; it is not a count of workers, so it cannot show that no jobs were lost. Choice A is the law itself, not evidence about its costs. Choice B is the other side's claim, which Hornaday is answering. Choice D is about where plume sales stopped, which supports results, not costs.
Question 7 of 20 · Multiple Choice
Source 2 notes that Pennsylvania still allowed the sale of heron and egret plumes. Which weakness of state-by-state laws does this illustrate?
Answer: B
If plumes can be sold legally in one state, the market for them, and the hunting that supplies it, can continue there; this is a problem of reach. Choice A is contradicted by the New York law itself. Choice C is not in Source 2. Choice D ignores the state laws Hornaday praises.
Question 8 of 20 · Multiple Choice
According to Source 3, paragraph 1, what was Missouri's main argument against the Migratory Bird Treaty Act?
Answer: D
Missouri claimed "the statute is an unconstitutional interference with the rights reserved to the States by the Tenth Amendment." Choices A and C are not Missouri's arguments in the opinion. Choice B is contradicted by paragraph 2, which says the treaty "was proclaimed by the President" on December 8, 1916.
Question 9 of 20 · Multiple Choice
According to the treaty's recital in Source 3, paragraph 2, why did the birds need protection?
Answer: A
The treaty recited that the birds "were of great value as a source of food and in destroying insects injurious to vegetation, but were in danger of extermination through lack of adequate protection." Choices B, C and D are not in the recital; D reverses the treaty's purpose.
Question 10 of 20 · Multiple Choice
Why does Holmes conclude that the national interest "can be protected only by national action in concert with that of another power" (Source 3, paragraph 4)?
Answer: C
Holmes says the birds "yesterday had not arrived, tomorrow may be in another State and in a week a thousand miles away," and that the subject-matter "is only transitorily within the State." Since the birds cross into Canada, one country alone cannot protect them either. Choice A contradicts paragraph 3, which admits a state "may regulate the killing and sale of such birds." Choices B and D are not in the opinion.
Question 11 of 20 · Multiple Choice
Holmes writes, "It is not sufficient to rely upon the States. The reliance is vain" (Source 3, paragraph 4). On the scorecard, this is a judgment mainly about which criterion for the states?
Answer: B
"The reliance is vain" means relying on the states had not worked (results), and the opinion's reason is that birds cross borders that no state controls (reach). Choice A is about who pays, which Holmes does not discuss here. Choice C confuses the states with the federal statute whose durability the case decides. Choice D is not one of the five criteria.
Question 12 of 20 · Multiple Choice
Using the crash table for Source 4, what was the mean number of crashes per year from 2019 through 2021, before any changes?
Answer: B
(11 + 7 + 12) / 3 = 30 / 3 = 10 crashes a year. Choice A, 11.5, leaves out the 2020 count that the question includes: (11 + 12) / 2. Choice C is the highest single year, not the mean. Choice D is the total for the three years, not divided by 3.
Question 13 of 20 · Multiple Choice
A news report compares only two years: 12 crashes in 2021 and 4 in 2024. By what percent did crashes fall from 2021 to 2024?
Answer: C
(12 - 4) / 12 = 8/12, about 0.67, so crashes fell about 67%. Choice A treats the drop of 8 crashes as 8 percent. Choice B, 4/12, gives the 2024 count as a share of the 2021 count, not the decrease. Choice D divides by the new value: (12 - 4) / 4 = 2, which says how much larger 2021 was than 2024, not the percent decrease. Comparing two single years is weaker evidence than comparing means of several years: 2021 was the highest year, and the count rose again to 6 in 2025.
Question 14 of 20 · Multiple Choice
Why might the 2020 crash count make the "before" mean less reliable as a baseline?
Answer: C
Source 4 says "Cedar Bend's schools held classes online for part of 2020," so traffic at a school crossing was probably lower for a reason unrelated to safety measures; dropping 2020 gives (11 + 12) / 2 = 11.5. Choice A is false: the signal opened in January 2023. Choice B is not in the source. Choice D is false: 7 is one of the lower counts, and 2021 (12) is the highest.
Question 15 of 20 · Short Answer
Evaluate the effectiveness of the Audubon wardens (citizens) in Source 1 on two scorecard criteria. Give a score for each and the evidence.
Model answer: Results, 1 of 2: the wardens guarded "twenty colonies, which contain all told, about 5,000 egrets" (paragraph 5), and Hornaday calls the work "successful," but he gives no earlier count for those colonies, so the size of the gain is unclear. Enforcement, 1 of 2: the wardens deterred raids on guarded rookeries, but one warden "was shot dead" (paragraph 4) and hunters began shooting birds "in transit," beyond the guards' reach. Rubric: 2 points per criterion for a score with specific evidence; 1 point for a score with general evidence.
Question 16 of 20 · Short Answer
Evaluate the New York legislature's plumage law (Source 2) on reach and on costs. Use the source and your own reasoning.
Model answer: Reach, 1 of 2: inside New York the law worked, since "the aigrette business is dead in this state," but it could not stop sales in states with gaps, such as Pennsylvania's exception for heron and egret plumes, or hunting in Florida. Costs, 1 or 2 of 2: the trade predicted "thousands of operatives out of employment," and Hornaday says workers moved to silk and lace, but his evidence is only "We have heard of none," so the score depends on how much weight that claim deserves. Rubric: 2 points per criterion with evidence and reasoning; 1 point with evidence only.
Question 17 of 20 · Short Answer
Using Sources 1 and 3, explain why the success of guarded colonies in Florida and Louisiana did not make national and international action unnecessary.
Model answer: The guarded colonies protected birds only in a few places; Source 1 shows hunters shooting birds "in transit" and a state that had not yet "take[n] part in the war." Source 3 explains why: the birds "yesterday had not arrived, tomorrow may be in another State and in a week a thousand miles away," and they migrate into Canada, so only "national action in concert with that of another power" could cover their whole range. Rubric: 2 points for linking the limit in Source 1 to the reasoning in Source 3 with evidence from each; 1 point for one source.
Question 18 of 20 · Short Answer
State Missouri's strongest argument in its own terms, then evaluate it using one fact from the lesson.
Model answer: Missouri argued that wildlife within its borders was its to regulate, and that the act was "an unconstitutional interference with the rights reserved to the States by the Tenth Amendment" (Source 3, paragraph 1); letting a treaty reach what Congress alone could not do might expand national power without limit. Evaluation: many states did regulate birds, and New York's law worked inside its borders (Source 2), but states could not control birds that cross into other states and Canada, and Florida's enforcement failed (Source 1). Students may weigh state self-government more heavily and reach a different verdict if their reasoning is supported. Rubric: 2 points for a fair statement of the argument; 2 points for an evaluation with evidence.
Question 19 of 20 · Short Answer
Compare the effectiveness of the New York plumage law (state) with the Migratory Bird Treaty Act of 1918 (national and international) on durability and reach.
Model answer: Durability: New York's law survived an attempt to repeal it (Source 2, paragraph 3), and the 1918 act survived Missouri's challenge when the Supreme Court held that "the treaty and statute must be upheld" (Source 3, paragraph 4), unlike the 1913 Weeks-McLean Act, which lower courts struck down. Reach: New York's law covered one state's market, while the 1918 act covered every state and, through the treaty, worked alongside Canada's protection of the same birds. So the national and international approach scores higher on reach, while both score well on durability. Rubric: 2 points per criterion with evidence from the sources or timeline.
Question 20 of 20 · Short Answer
Hornaday was a campaigner for bird protection. Explain how his purpose affects how you should use Sources 1 and 2 to evaluate effectiveness, and name one of his claims you would check and how.
Model answer: Hornaday wanted stronger laws, so he had reasons to praise the laws and groups he supported and to paint opponents harshly; his claims of success are evidence, but they need corroboration. For example, "We have heard of none" (Source 2) could be checked against employment records for hat workers in New York before and after the law, and his claim that the Audubon work "has been successful" could be checked against bird counts for the same colonies over several years. Rubric: 2 points for explaining how purpose affects reliability; 2 points for a specific claim and a realistic way to check it.
0 of 20 answered · 0 correct
06
Frequently Asked Questions
10 Questions
What does D2.Civ.5.9-12 mean?
D2.Civ.5.9-12 asks high school students to judge how well citizens and institutions solve public problems. The full text is "Evaluate citizens' and institutions' effectiveness in addressing social and political problems at the local, state, tribal, national, and/or international level." The key verb is evaluate: students make and defend a judgment, not just describe what happened.
What counts as an institution in D2.Civ.5.9-12?
An institution is a lasting public body or arrangement with rules and authority, such as a city council, a state legislature, a tribal government, a federal agency, a court or a treaty. Citizens include individuals and the voluntary groups they form, such as the Audubon societies or a parents' safety group.
Does a D2.Civ.5.9-12 lesson have to cover all five levels?
No. The indicator says "and/or," so the levels are a range of settings, not a checklist. This lesson centers on local, state, national and international action, and Activity 3 adds a tribal-level problem. Teachers can choose any level where there is enough evidence to evaluate.
How do students evaluate effectiveness without just giving an opinion?
By using explicit criteria and evidence. This lesson's scorecard asks about results, reach, enforcement, costs and side effects, and durability, with a score and a piece of evidence for each. Two students can still disagree, but each must show what their judgment rests on.
Why use a historical case instead of a current issue?
A settled case lets students see the whole arc, including the outcome, and keeps the focus on reasoning rather than on current political loyalties. The homework then applies the same tools to an invented local scenario, which practices the skill on a present-day kind of problem without asking students to take sides on a real dispute.
Is Hornaday a reliable source?
He is a valuable but one-sided source. As director of the New York Zoological Park and a campaigner for wildlife laws, he knew the subject well and wanted readers to support stronger protection. His numbers and verdicts should be weighed and, where possible, checked against other evidence, which is itself part of evaluating effectiveness.
What did Missouri v. Holland decide?
In 1920 the Supreme Court upheld, 7-2, the Migratory Bird Treaty Act of 1918, which carried out a 1916 treaty with Great Britain for the protection of birds migrating between the United States and Canada. The case is still cited in debates about the treaty power and the balance between national and state authority.
How is D2.Civ.5.9-12 different from D2.Civ.5.6-8?
The grades 6-8 indicator asks students to explain the origins, functions and structure of government. The grades 9-12 indicator moves from explaining to evaluating: students judge how well citizens and institutions actually work on real problems. Knowing the structure from middle school helps students see why a problem may need a different level of government.
Which other C3 indicators pair well with D2.Civ.5.9-12?
D2.Civ.13.9-12 (evaluating public policies by their intended and unintended outcomes) and D2.Civ.12.9-12 (how people use and challenge laws) fit closely. D4.7.9-12, on assessing options for individual and collective action, is a natural next step that moves from evaluating past action to planning, in a simulated or classroom setting.
How should I grade the evaluative writing?
Score the reasoning, not the verdict. A strong answer names its criteria, cites specific evidence, notes a limit of that evidence and responds to the best argument on the other side. The homework rubric gives points for data analysis, use of criteria, limits of evidence and the final judgment.
07
Related Standards
5 standards
These standards connect to D2.Civ.5.9-12: prerequisites to review first, parallel standards at the same level, and next steps that build on it.
Before this lesson
D2.Civ.5.6-8Prerequisite
Explain the origins, functions and structure of government
Assess options for individual and collective action on local to global problems
Lesson coming soon
Standard text: National Council for the Social Studies (NCSS), The College, Career, and Civic Life (C3) Framework for Social Studies State Standards: Guidance for Enhancing the Rigor of K-12 Civics, Economics, Geography, and History (Silver Spring, MD: NCSS, 2013). NCSS was not involved in the production of this lesson and does not endorse it.
