Submit your nomination for an outstanding teacher by May 31!

The Washington State Historical Society is now accepting nominations for the Governor’s Award for Excellence in Teaching History. This award is presented each year to an outstanding certified teacher of Pacific Northwest history in an accredited K-12 school in Washington.  The award includes $750 and a Gold Star of recognition.  For more information and to nominate an outstanding teacher visit: http://www.washingtonhistory.org/about/awards/

ISKME is inviting you to participate in small, subject-based cohorts of educators to discuss crisis learning and the pivot to online teaching. Their goal is to provide practitioners with an expert-supported, informal discussion space to brainstorm with peers and share ideas around adapting to the current situation. 

Fill out the short form here to let them know you're interested!

High School History: Fostering Healthy Discussion and Debate over Video

Featuring Amanda Bartlett, a long-time History teacher with experience in special education and administration

June 18th, 7pm ET/4pm PT

If this isn't applicable to you or you can’t make the time, ISKME will be offering a series of cross-grade cohorts later this summer around topics like Social-Emotional Learning, Project-Based Learning, and strategies around getting students back up to speed in the fall. Go to https://forms.gle/WPU3hNTUQPLzbVAF7 to complete the short survey.

National Historic Trails (within the National Park Service system) wants to create a program which can be accessed by kids from anywhere in the world, and that’s only possible by creating a digital version of a Junior Ranger Program. To determine what is included in the program, the rangers have been developing and identifying prototypes that will aid in the following:

• Conducting background research (IRB approved) on effective methods to engage users (predominantly youth) from a digital perspective, and
• Testing prototypes in various settings like classrooms and community spaces throughout the Mountain West and beyond.

To continue their work during COVID-19, they developed a website which contains many prototypes in the form of games, activities, and videos. Each of these components has a survey attached which will help them gain feedback from users. To note, there is no identifiable information whatsoever. Please help them out by sharing this educational website with elementary and middle schools in Washington state, as a resource to assist teachers during this time. The activities are geared toward ages 8-13. Visit their website at https://digitaljuniorrangers.weebly.com.

Digital Junior Rangers are a mixture of graduate, undergraduate, and high school students coming from Gunnison, Colorado. They are guided by Dr. Melanie Armstrong, professor and Public Lands Coordinator in the Environmental Management graduate department at Western Colorado University.