Just For Teachers
As you start the new year, I wanted to let you know of scholarships we have available for elementary teachers from South Carolina to attend the Colonial Williamsburg Teacher Institute in Early American History in 2009. The donors for Beaufort, Hampton, and Jasper Counties have once again offered to send 12 teachers from that region. In addition, we have scholarships available for teachers from across South Carolina. We also have a donor who has offered a matching grant just for elementary teachers in South Carolina – if your school or district will sponsor one teacher, the Colonial Williamsburg donor will sponsor a second.
For more information and the applications, please visit us on the web at http://www.history.org/history/teaching/tchsti_scholarship.cfm?state=SouthCarolina#SouthCarolina. Applications are due by January 30, 2009.
Cowpens National
Battlefield
Cowpens National Battlefield is dedicated to protecting and preserving the cultural and
natural features within park boundaries, to commemorating and interpreting the Battle of
Cowpens and the natural setting of the battle, and to educate and inform the public about
the battle, the Southern Campaign, and the impact that fighting in the South had on the
end of the war.
My Wonderful World
Geography is more than places on a map. It's
global connections and incredible creatures. It's people and cultures,
economics and politics. And it's essential to understanding our
interconnected world.
But sadly, our kids aren't getting enough of it. A new National Geographic-Roper survey shows half of young Americans can't locate world powers like Japan and India. Twenty percent can't even find the Pacific Ocean. (More about the survey.) Without geography, our children aren't ready for the world.
That's why we started My Wonderful World. It's a National Geographic-led campaign—backed by a coalition of major national partners—to expand geographic learning in school, at home, and in the community. We want to give our kids the power of global knowledge.
The National
Consortium for Teaching about Asia
The National Consortium for Teaching about Asia (NCTA), funded by
the Freeman Foundation, is a multi-year initiative to encourage and
facilitate teaching and learning about Asia in world history, geography,
social studies, and literature courses.
The South Carolina Council on Economic Education
This non-profit business-education partnership is dedicated to providing teachers with continuing education in economics and personal finance. SCCEE’s mission is to help South Carolina’s young people learn to think, choose and function successfully in a changing and challenging global economy. The Council believes that the most effective way to accomplish this is by teaching their teachers how to make economic and personal financial decision-making skills come alive in the classroom. SCCEE makes a variety of resources available to teachers like the popular Stock Market Game, where students actually buy and sell stocks using their virtual money. The SC EconomicsChallenge matches teams across the state against each other to test their economic “fitness.” FREE teaching materials along with standards-based curriculum by subject area—from social studies and math to language arts and personal finance—are also found on the Web site. In addition, SCCEE will customize its teacher trainings to meet the particular needs of the faculty at your school.
Teaching American History in South Carolina (TAHSC) coordinates yearly Summer Institutes that provide a range of professional development opportunities for South Carolina teachers. Summer institutes give teachers the tools needed to make history more engaging for their students. Participants establish relationships with academic historians, master teachers, and staff from cultural institutions to share teaching strategies and create original curriculum designed for effective classroom instruction.
Omaha
School District's Historical Novel Lessons for 7th and 8th grades
In an effort to utilize supplemental novels as a means of instruction and increasing
literacy, it is beneficial for teachers of seventh and eighth grade students to have a
uniform novel "enhancement and curriculum guide." This approaches the novel not
only from a comprehension standpoint, but one of higher order thinking skills and
connecting the learning to specific content standards. Each guide includes a synopsis, web
sites and enrichment, vocabulary development, comprehension, timeline activity, map
activity, understanding two points of view, and linking the novel to current events. It is
hoped that students will be offered a choice of novels and these guides will facilitate
that choice for the educator.
Gideon
v. Wainwright
In 2003, American celebrated the 40th anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court's landmark
decision in Gideon v. Wainwright, in which a poor Florida prisoner caused the
single biggest change in the history of the U.S. criminal justice system. Before
Gideon, persons accused of crime could be sent to prison without any representation by a
lawyer unless they were wealthy enough to hire one. The Gideon decision guaranteed
that all persons accused of a felony are entitled to appointed counsel. To help educate
students about the significance of the Gideon decision and the constitutional right to
counsel, the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers (NACDL) has developed a
lesson plan for high school history, civics, government, and social studies classes
(easily adaptable for middle school classes). Click here to download the lesson plan.
Economics
and Geography Lessons for 32 Children's Books
These lessons were developed by Patricia King Robeson and Barbara Yingling sponsored by
The Council on Economic Education in Maryland and The Maryland Geographic Alliance.
Lesson Plan Databases
Follow this link to a directory of searchable databases that contain Social Studies
lessons.
Media Literacy Clearinghouse
Included on this web site are numerous articles, background and lesson plans designed to
help teachers integrate media literacy into classroom instruction.
Teaching Democracy
The Media and American Democracy Program at the Harvard Graduate School of Education aims
to help secondary school educators teach about the role of the media in our democracy.
This web site provides access to many of the program's resources. Click on TEACHING
RESOURCES for teacher-written lesson plans.
Professional Organizations
This is a list of Social Studies-related professional organizations, both on the state and
national level.
South Carolina
African-American History project online
The African-American History project is brought to you through the partnership of
BELLSOUTH, SCETV and WIS-TV. The project, now in its twelfth year, provides educators a
method of identifying role models for all youth.
South Carolina Geographic Alliance
The South Carolina Geographic Alliance is a network of K-12
educators and university geographers using geography to improve the
education of our children. Our primary goal is to bring the concepts and
methodology of modern geography to the K-12 classroom by providing
high-quality, low cost, professional development opportunities and
materials for South Carolina educators. The Alliance is a partnership
between the State of South Carolina, the University of South Carolina, and
the National Geographic Society and its Education Foundation.
Support Site South Carolina State
Social Studies Curriculum Standards
South Carolina Social Studies Academic Standards contains the revised academic
standards in social studies for South Carolina students from kindergarten through twelfth
grade. A field review of the first draft of these standards was conducted from April
through June 2004, and feedback from that review has been incorporated into this document.
Because a working knowledge of government, geography, economics, and history is essential
for effective citizenship in a democracy, the theme for these standards is civic
education. The final draft was presented to the State Board of Education on January 12,
2005.
Social
Studies Web Page on the State Department of Education Web Site