On the night of December 16, 1773, a group of colonists boarded three ships in Boston Harbor and threw 342 chests of East India Company tea into the water. This lesson asks students to find out why.
Students read about the Tea Act of 1773, the colonial argument that Parliament should not tax people who had no representatives in it, and the harsh laws Britain passed in response, which colonists called the Intolerable Acts. They finish by weighing the protesters’ choices and explaining how the event pushed the colonies toward revolution.
Lesson at a glance
- Grade 5, about 30–45 minutes
- Skills: cause and effect, using evidence from a text
- Guiding question: Why did the Boston Tea Party happen?