The United States Department of Education awarded a three-year, $1 million grant for a project involving Ohio University's Department of History, the Ohio Historical Society and the Perry-Hocking Educational Service Center.
The grant, awarded Oct. 4, will fund instructional services for 96 high school history teachers in southern Ohio. It is part of the federal Think History initiative to improve American history education in public schools.
The money will be spent in a variety of ways
said Marvin Fletcher, an OU history professor. It will help pay the graduate tuition of the teachers who participate and pay for substitutes so that teachers can attend workshops during the school week.
During the academic year, teachers will attend four workshops at the Ohio Historical Society in Columbus on history topics such as immigration, frontier settlement and the Constitution. The participating teachers will receive graduate credit from OU.
A majority of the workshop leaders will be OU history department faculty, Fletcher said.
In addition teachers will be going to Ohio University campuses for workshops following up on the topics and using primary source material Fletcher said. They will be visiting Ohio Historical Society sites
such as Adena or Campus Martius.
Fletcher said the teachers will write papers integrating the topics covered in the workshops and their studies at OU campuses.
In terms of impact (on public education)
the individual teachers will know more about the subject they are teaching and will know how to better use primary sources in the classroom
Fletcher said. In turn
it is hoped
they will bring this knowledge to their colleagues.
The U.S. Department of Education expects that the grant will improve the quality of history education in an area that badly needs it.
What got us the grant
I believe
was the topic and the region we serve
Fletcher said. It will be a great program for the region and for Ohio University.
- Ashley Herzog
