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The National Humanities Center spring professional development seminar schedule is now available. Spring 2010 begins a collaboration between the National Humanities Center and the PBS program, American Experience. To help teachers explore using American Experience as a teaching tool, they are offering two special seminars: Walt Whitman’s Civil War Poetry and Hamilton’s America — Jefferson’s America. Both of these seminars will use materials from the appropriate American Experience episodes, which are available for free online viewing, as well as texts and documents from the National Humanities Center’s Toolbox Library. These unique seminars will provide teachers with primary documents and resources for use in the classroom with the American Experience episodes.

A list of all the seminars can be found on the National Humanities Center website. For North Carolina teachers, three seminars will earn one CEU credit. Also, for NC teachers, the National Humanities Center will waive the registration fee. Teachers must email Caryn Koplik directly for free registration.

The Mariposa Stories Project is designed to improve literacy in both English and Spanish through books for young children. The bilingual books also aid in fostering and further developing cultural awareness and appreciation.

The books capture the Latino/a experience in the Durham community by retelling stories from the community’s members. Duke University Spanish service-learning students conducted interviews with Latino/a students in local elementary schools and it is the children’s experiences that have been developed into the story lines of the bilingual books.

The books can be found online along with fun, educational activities related to the stories, such as crossword puzzles and word searches in English and Spanish that will aid in the development of young children’s bilingual vocabulary and reading comprehension. Hard copies, as well as the online scanned versions of the books, are distributed free of charge so that all children have the additional resources they need to succeed in school and life.

Located on 59 acres of floodplain in southeast Raleigh, the Walnut Creek Wetlands Center is now open to the public. The Center provides a unique opportunity for visitors to see the plants and animals of a wetland in an urban setting. Low cost programs are available to teach “the importance of wetlands, wildlife habitats, hydrology, natural ecosystems, and human interactions with the natural environment.”

Educators can find more information about the Center in LEARN NC’s Discover NC section. Also check out the field guide, “Walnut Creek: A Guide to Exploring Urban Wetlands” created by Exploris Middle School Students. Over the course of a year, the students investigated the wetlands. Using cameras and waterproof journals, they recorded everything they saw and experienced, from tracks made by raccoons and coyotes to the lowliest leopard slugs and sea lampreys. They presented their work to the city of Raleigh in 2008 to be placed in the new Walnut Creek Wetlands Center. LEARN NC is proud to be able to bring this work to you on our site in PDF format.

North Carolina Maps is a comprehensive, online collection of historic maps of the Tar Heel State. Featuring maps from three of the state’s largest map collections — the North Carolina State Archives, the North Carolina Collection at UNC-Chapel Hill, and the Outer Banks History Center — North Carolina Maps provides an unprecedented level of access to these materials. North Carolina Maps contains more than 2,000 maps, ranging in date from the late 1500s to 2000, and including detailed maps for each of North Carolina’s one hundred counties.

North Carolina Maps’ K-12 section is devoted to helping teachers use the interactive maps included in the database. Included in this section are essays instructing teachers on how to incorporate maps into the classroom, an illustrated history of maps of North Carolina, and dozens of lesson plans using the maps on the site. The lesson plans span all age groups from kindergarten to twelfth grade and every core subject from environmental science to U.S. history. Math teachers can even teach algebra using a map lesson plan!

One of the site’s most popular lesson plans is the eighth-grade lesson “Webquest: Building an Historic District.” In this lesson, students explore the city of Oxford using overlay maps that switch from 1882 to the present day, and they can find where local schools, grocery stores, and movie theaters were located.

Blog post provided by Jennifer Job, Documenting the American South/UNC Libraries

If you missed LEARN NC’s Fall Interactive Conference on October 1, we’ve posted video archives from all the afternoon sessions. Nine sessions in total cover project-based learning; professional development; fun, free tools for the classroom; and more content designed to save you time and help you teach more effectively.

The videos also feature a replay of the ongoing live chat. This online conversation includes supplemental links, resources, and insights from LEARN NC staff members and educators from around North Carolina — and around the country.

All session archives will open in Adobe Connect. For more information about Adobe Connect software, please see the technical requirements section of the “Details for Virtual Participants” page.

LEARN NC Fall Interactive Conference 2009 — Session archives

The most recent post on our blog Special Education: Telling Facts from Fiction takes a look at pacing guides and asks whether they’re effective when dealing with students who have disabilities.

Check out the latest post on our new blog, Special Education: Telling Facts from Fiction, which analyzes the claim that teaching to students’ preferred learning styles will increase academic success.

Teach kids how great the great outdoors can be. Celebrate “Take A Child Outside Week” Thursday, September 24 through Wednesday, September 30. Take a Child Outside Week is a national initiative spearheaded by the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences designed to help break down obstacles that keep children from exploring the natural world. The week encourages children and adults to spend time together outdoors.

On the “Take A Child Outside” website, adults are encouraged to pledge to take a child outside during the week and chart their location on a digital map. LEARN NC is featured as one of the partners on the map. The web site also offers a link to interesting outdoor activities, as well as a list of other participating organizations.

“By arming parents, teachers and caregivers with resources on outdoor activities, children will become reconnected with nature and spend more time outdoors,” says Liz Baird, Director of School Programs at the Museum.

Currently, all 50 U.S. states and four foreign countries actively participate in “Take A Child Outside Week.” This initiative attracted 109 partners its first year and now more than 300 organizations participate nationwide including parks, museums, science centers, and many other organizations interested in reconnecting children and nature.

Wildlife educators encourage North Carolina students to take a walk on the wild side. On March 5, 2010,  sixth- through twelfth-grade students may attend free, hands-on wildlife workshops at the North Carolina State Fair’s Kerr Scott Building. Qualified instructors, including area biologists, environmental educators, wildlife professionals, and wildlife enforcement and conservation staff, will be on hand to lead the workshops, which are aligned to the North Carolina Standard Course of Study.

Students will be introduced to a variety of wildlife and outdoor skills topics using interactive activities that focus on using the scientific method. The workshops will offer topics such as biological diversity, adaptation, and sustainable conservation practice. Each topic will be presented in the context of real-world issues that affect the everyday lives of North Carolina students and their communities (rural, suburban, & urban). Click here to read a complete list of workshops. Updates related to this special event will be posted as they become available at the Wildlife Youth Day website.

Register

Interested applicants may pre-register online by simply providing contact information, an estimated count of students, and workshop preferences.

Please confirm your interest by Nov 15, 2009 as workshop schedules will be set based on interest returned at that time. Seats will be filled first by those who pre-register. Remaining seats will then offered on a first-come, first-served basis after that date. For more information, please contact Judy Gardner at (919) 552-9449 (evenings).

About this event

Take A Walk on the Wild Side is proudly sponsored as a collaborative effort, led by the Wake County Wildlife Club, North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission, North Carolina State University, North Carolina State Chapter of the Quality Deer Management Association, North Carolina National Wild Turkey Federation, North Carolina Wildlife Federation, and other community-minded wildlife partners.

Note: The deadline to apply has been extended to Friday, September 11.

LEARN NC and the creators of the Powering a Nation website are looking for an innovative high school science teacher to write lesson plans based on the stories on Powering a Nation.

Overview

A team of 12 journalists at UNC-Chapel Hill received a grant from the Carnegie and Knight foundations to investigate energy issues in the United States for 10 weeks this summer. They used innovative multimedia storytelling to explore energy solutions that will sustain a growing population. This web-based news project, entitled Powering a Nation launched July 31. The content includes nine stories about energy use in the U.S. and how it affects — and is affected by — the American population. We are searching for a high school science teacher to write at least five detailed instructional plans that make innovative and meaningful use of the stories on the website to teach science objectives in the North Carolina Standard Course of Study.

The lesson plans will be published on the LEARN NC website, and the teacher will receive $500 for his or her work.

Job requirements

The curriculum designer will work closely with LEARN NC to determine grade and subject suitability. The lesson plans must meet LEARN NC’s standards for publishing lesson plans.

Timeline

Deadline for proposals: Friday, August 28.
Deadline extended to Friday, September 11.
To start immediately with completion by Friday, November 6.

Expression of interest

After reviewing the content on Powering a Nation, please submit to Emily Jack a one-page proposal detailing your lesson plan ideas. Proposals should include, for each lesson, a brief overview of lesson activities, planned curriculum alignment, and connection to the Powering a Nation material. For more information, contact Laura Ruel.