National Council for the Social Studies Virtual Conference
NCSS will host the first-ever virtual conference December 4-6, 2020. Keynote speakers include Nikole Hannah-Jones, Chelsea Clinton, Ken Burns, Chuck Todd, and more. Find out more information and register here.
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Iowa Council for the Social Studies Conference
The ICSS Fall Conference will be virtual this year and registration is the cost of a membership. Two Tech Support Nights will be hosted Aug. 11 and 18 from 6 to 7 pm. The conference sessions are scheduled every Tuesday in September from 5 to 7 pm. Details about the sessions are available on the ICSS website. Katy Swalwell will be presenting the opening session on September 1. The title of her talk is "The Long Struggle: A History of Anti-Black Racism in Iowa."
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New Standards at a Glance Documents Available
The social studies standards at a glance documents have recently been updated. Guides are now available for Kindergarten-5th grade, 7th grade, and high school U.S. history. You can view them all here under Standards at a Glance.
Iowa Students Win Top Honors at National History Day
Six Iowa students are celebrating this week after winning top honors at the 2020 National History Day national finals held online this year due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Addison Naslund, Ben Philips, Hayden Wahlberg, Josie Jacobs and Lainey Schuknecht of Akron-Westfield Middle School won first place for their documentary "Rural Electrification: Breaking Barriers with the Flip of a Switch." Jessica Cline of Washington High School of Cedar Rapids took third place for her performance in "Breaking Barriers: Concept Over Craft – Or – What the Mutt?" an artistic movement that focuses on concept over craft.
In addition, a documentary created by Anjali Kumar and Eshaan Chandani of Johnston Middle School has been selected for the 2020 Digital Documentary Showcase hosted by the National Museum of African American History and Culture. The showcase, including Kumar and Chandani's "One Woman's Vision: Eunice Kennedy Shriver's Race for Equality," will run through June 24 and can be streamed online at s.si.edu/NHDShowcase2020.
Next year's National History Day theme is communication in history. More information can be found here.
Remembering John Lewis
Often called "one of the most courageous persons the Civil Rights Movement ever produced," John Lewis has dedicated his life to protecting human rights, securing civil liberties, and building what he calls "The Beloved Community” in America. His dedication to the highest ethical standards and moral principles has won him the admiration of many of his colleagues on both sides of the aisle in the United States Congress.
He was born the son of sharecroppers on February 21, 1940, outside of Troy, Alabama. He grew up on his family's farm and attended segregated public schools in Pike County, Alabama. As a young boy, he was inspired by the activism surrounding the Montgomery Bus Boycott and the words of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., which he heard on radio broadcasts. In those pivotal moments, he made a decision to become a part of the Civil Rights Movement. Ever since then, he has remained at the vanguard of progressive social movements and the human rights struggle in the United States. (Source: https://johnlewis.house.gov/john-lewis/biography). He passed away on July 17 2020.
Good Trouble, a new documentary about the life of John Lewis, can be viewed here. You can view more about John Lewis and the history of voting rights here.
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New Issue of History Now Available
The Gilder Lehrman Institute has released its new issue of History Now. This issue is about Black Voices in American Historiography.
New Report on Civic Education Released
The American Academy of Arts and Sciences recently released a new report called, Our Common Purpose: Reinventing American Democracy for the 21st Century. The report identifies six strategies and 31 ambitious recommendations to help the nation emerge as a more resilient democracy by 2026, the nation's 250th anniversary. View the report here.
Asian Americans Documentary on PBS
Asian Americans, a five-part documentary that aired on PBS in May can be streamed online for free. Accompanying curriculum materials are available here. You can also watch a webinar from Teaching Tolerance on teaching about Asian American heritage here.
Everyday Inquiry in Elementary Social Studies
My colleagues in Georgia have put together a great resource for seeing inquiry in action in elementary social studies classrooms. You can view the collection of videos here.
Resources for Teaching about the Presidency
The White House Historical Association has several "classroom resource packets" on their website. These range from designing the White House to roles of the President. Check them all out here.
Supply and Demand During COVID-19
This blog post, Supply and Demand of Agriculture During COVID-19, outlines a supply and demand timeline of agricultural products and what can be done about supply and demand issues in both the short and long term.
EduHam at Home
Want to use Hamilton in your U.S. History or Government course? Check out EduHam at Home. This program provides teachers with access to key primary source documents, a welcome message from Lin Manuel Miranda, example student performances, and more.
Amplifying Black Voices in WWI
The most recent issue of Understanding the Great War focuses on amplifying black voices involved in World War I and their legacy. Check out the issue here.
Arlington National Cemetery Resources
Teaching about veterans? Or the role of national cemeteries in honoring veterans? Arlington National Cemetery recently created several new resources to support this learning in the classroom. Check out the resources here.
A Brief History of Xenophobia
Densho, an organization dedicated to preserving, educating, and sharing the story of World War II-era incarceration of Japanese Americans in order to deepen understandings of American history and inspire action for equity, recently published a short documentary about the history of xenophobia in America. Check it out here.
Teaching Current Events
Facing History and Ourselves has released new resources for teaching about current events. This includes "explainers," blogs, webinars, and other teaching ideas. Check them out here. You can view a checklist for preparing to teach about current events here.
Primary Source Sets from the Digital Public Library of America
The DPLA has over 140 primary source sets on topics ranging from the impact of television on news media to the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Check out the sets here. The Library of Congress put out these tips for using primary sources in remote learning environments.
Using the Question Formulation Technique (QFT)
Teaching with Children's Literature
The National Council for the Social Studies Early Childhood/Elementary Community has created a website with several lesson plans for teaching using children's literature and social studies. Join their Facebook page here.
Teaching the 2020 Election
iCivics recently released new resources for teaching the 2020 election. View them here.
Supporting the 2020 Census
The Statistics in Schools (SIS) program developed these toolkits to provide instructions and tips on using and adapting SIS activities and resources for at-home use. Each toolkit contains everything needed to get started, including a teaching guide, a student worksheet, a list of materials, and an estimate of how long each lesson takes (lessons are between 5 and 20 minutes). There are four toolkits available:
New Social Studies Lessons
Bites Media has released several new modules to support social studies and civic education. Examples include the role of the World Health Organization, immigration, the electoral college, the Supreme Court, and more.
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World 101
World 101 is a fantastic resource from the Council on Foreign Relations. The resource has two "pathways"- Regions of the World and Global Era Issues. The Regions of the World pathway includes modules on the Americas, Europe, Middle East & North Africa and more. The Global Era Issues pathway includes modules on globalization, migration, trade, global health, and more. You can also check out their pop up diplomacy cases here and their YouTube channel here. This resource would provide strong support for Iowa's 6th and 7th grade standards.
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Teaching about Race
Strengthening Our Democracy
This new resource from the Anti-Defamation League includes resources on dialogue vs. debate, young people in the civil rights movement, implicit bias and more.
Teaching Women's Suffrage
This year marks the 100th anniversary of women's suffrage. Check out these resources for teaching about women's suffrage.
Resources for Building Community
Facing History and Ourselves just released several resources for building community in your classroom this school year. There are also tools for several models of school- in person, hybrid, and fully online. Check them out here.
Iowa History Resource
Midwest Connections is a tool for examining the movement of people across the Great Lakes and Upper Mississippi regions. View the resource here.
New Teaching Tolerance Film
Bibi, a new film from Teaching Tolerance tells the story of a Latinx father and son who can talk about anything—but only in writing, in the letters they pass back and forth when conversation seems too much. You can view the film here.
Vietnam War- 50th Anniversary
The United States Vietnam War Commemoration is committed to providing inspiring materials and noteworthy web-based resources to educators for use inside and outside of the classroom. These resources offer a variety of service-learning programs, website links, and suggested activities and events to assist Americans in thanking and honoring Vietnam veterans and their families for their service and sacrifice. View the resources here.
Arlington National Cemetery Resources
Teaching about veterans? Or the vote of national cemeteries? Check out these new resources from Arlington National Cemetery.
Teaching Controversial Topics and Civil Debate
The Civics Renewal Network (a consortium of several civic education organization) has put together a compilation of resources on teaching controversial topics and civil debate. Check out the list here.
Media Literacy Resources
Facing History and Ourselves has a new resource entitled, Media Literacy and Bias. The resources helps students think about how they consume news, how to critically analyze the news, etc. Checkology, is a free resource from the News Literacy Project that includes an entire suite of news literacy lessons. Teachers can develop custom courses from these lessons to fit their students needs.
High School Psychology Course Template in Canvas
TOPSS recently release a high school psychology course template. The template is built in Canvas and aligns to the National Standards for High School Psychology. Find out more information here.
ELL + Social Studies
The Center for Applied Linguistics recently hosted a webinar entitled, The World. Around US: Social Studies, Geography, and Language in the Home. This is a great resource for thinking about how to support English language learners in the social studies classroom.
Humanities in Class Digital Library
The Humanities in Class Digital Library is an Open Education Resources (OER) platform, providing you with direct access to all of their online educational content. Individual educators and scholars, cohorts and schools, districts and states are encouraged to join and contribute. Membership is free to access the library.
Resources from the U.S. Army Heritage and Education Center
The U.S. Army Heritage and Education Center has undertaken a large-scale digitization project to make its collection available instantly and easily to Army leaders, educators, veterans, students, and researchers anywhere in the world. USAHEC is home to over 15 million documents, photographs, and artifacts pertaining to the history of the United States Army. The collection ranges from the personal papers of the first African-American general, Benjamin O. Davis, to Civil War letters and diaries of hundreds of soldiers, to over 35,000 surveys completed by Army veterans since the Spanish-American War. https://arena.usahec.org/web/arena
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NCHE Online Equity Summit
The National Council for History Education is hosting an online summit on equity August 4-6. There will be sessions throughout the three days that address the history of racism in the United States, voting rights, how to address issues of race and racism in the classroom and more. Check out more information and register here.
Stefanie Rosenberg Wager
Social Studies Consultant
21st Century Skills- Civic and Financial Literacy
World Languages
Iowa Department of Education
Grimes State Office Building
400 E. 14th Street
Des Moines, IA 50319
Phone: 515-725-7842
Cell: 515-419-2876
Fax: 515-242-5988
Email: stefanie.wager@iowa.gov
Social Studies standards, website, Iowa Core Social Studies, newsletter, calendar, Pinterest
Financial Literacy website, newsletter, Pinterest
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