| Grantee Name: | Clark County School District, NV |
| Project Name: | Inside American History Program |
| Project Director: | Stephanie A. Hirsch |
| Funding: | $1,993,687 |
| Number of Teachers Served: | 900 |
| Number of School Districts Served: | 1 |
| Number of Students Served: | 302,763 |
| Grade Levels: | 3-5 |
| Partners: | Community College of Southern Nevada and University of Nevada-Las Vegas, Nevada Humanities |
| Topics: | Early American History, Native American history, the Revolutionary War, the Civil War, 20th Century history |
| Methods: | Modules, online sessions, field trips |
To improve the teaching and learning of U.S. history in the fifth largest school district in the nation, "Inside American History" will conduct six annual five-week modules, each serving up to 50 participants. Some modules may be offered more than once, depending upon annual teacher surveys, and some teachers may participate in more than one module. Since the district is currently completing a TAH program for secondary school teachers, this project expands needed professional development opportunities to elementary teachers. Upon successful completion of each module, teacher can select to receive a $500 stipend or one graduate credit and a $370 stipend. Teachers also receive contributions to classroom libraries and audiovisual resources. The Civil War module content focuses on Sojourner Truth and William Lloyd Garrison, the Emancipation Proclamation and Gettysburg Address, Abraham Lincoln's first and second inaugural addresses, Walt Whitman, slave recollections, soldier and nurse memoirs, battles, the Nevada Constitution, the war's impact, and-throughout-lesson ideas.
| Grantee Name: | Washoe County School District, NV |
| Project Name: | Making an American Nation Out West: Myth, Place, and Modernization |
| Project Director: | James Barclay |
| Funding: | $954,730 |
| Number of Teachers Served: | 450 |
| Number of School Districts Served: | 7 |
| Number of Students Served: | No Information Available |
| Grade Levels: | 6-12 |
| Partners: | The University of Nevada-Reno, Truckee Meadows Community College, Great Basin College, Nevada Humanities, the Nevada Museum of Art, National Automobile Museum, the Nevada Historical Society, Western Folklife Center, Coordinated Management Services |
| Topics: | The American West in Diversity and Unity, Going West: The Trail, The New West in Landscapes and Imagination |
| Methods: | Summer institutes, primary source workshops |
This professional development project aims to increase teacher understanding and appreciation of American history, enhance use of standards-based curriculum materials, and increase student mastery of U.S. history, stressing the theme of the American West as a gathering place for diverse peoples in an age of global and American over-land expansion. Teacher teams from 40 schools will meet with historians, educators, archivists, preservationists, and curators to address such topics as: Expansion into New Lands, Thomas Jefferson and Lewis and Clark, mapping standards, from mining towns to ghost towns, and the atomic dilemma in Nevada. Book club selections deal with the Gold Rush; the American frontier; slavery, kinship, and community in the southwest borderlands; the European conquest of native America; and creation of the American West. The project confronts the myths surrounding a "frontier" past in the region, while examining U.S. national history and its socioeconomic modernization as reflected in western places, events, and people.
