Social Studies in the EUP
Updated 2/27/2024
Welcome new and returning EUP educators! This newsletter is shared with regional administrators, social studies teachers, and elementary educators throughout Chippewa, Mackinac, and Luce counties. In this newsletter you will find information on upcoming student events, professional learning opportunities, state-wide resources, and more. Always feel free to reach out if you have any questions!
-Helen Craig, Social Studies Curriculum Consultant
Eastern Upper Peninsula ISD
📆 Events & Funding Opportunities 📆
History Day 2024 - Save the Date!
Michigan Department of Education (MDE) Section 99d Teaching Diverse Histories Grant
Section 99d of the 2023-2024 School Aid Act provides $6 million from the state school aid fund for local districts to do both of the following:
- Develop and implement plans for professional learning concerning the teaching of the fullness of American history, including, but not limited to, the teaching of the history of communities of color and other marginalized communities, the teaching of local history, and the teaching of cultural competency.
- The purchasing of books and other educational resources for educators and students to support the goal of teaching every middle school and high school student American history that reflects the diversity of this state, including, but not limited to, the teaching of the history of communities of color and other marginalized communities.
This grant is due on Wednesday, March 6, 2024 by 5:00 p.m.
There are several opportunities for health, PE, and diverse history overlap. One potential initiative discussed with Health & PE teachers is to collaborate with Title VI advisors and local tribe education departments to provide education to students on indigenous winter games such as snow snake.
For grant requirements and additional information, visit the Michigan Department of Education’s (MDEs) Section 99d website.
Save the Date - Michigan Council for Social Studies Conference!
Conference title: Destination: Democracy
Dates: May 3-4
Location: Macomb ISD (Clinton Township, MI)
Never attended an MCSS conference before? The Michigan Council for the Social Studies is pleased to announce the opening of the First Timers Scholarship application for the 2024 conference at Macomb ISD! Multiple awards will be given as we try to ease the cost of attendance for elementary, middle, and high school teachers. While you'll still need to cover your own transportation and lodging, winners of our first timers scholarship award will have their conference registration paid in full by MCSS. Deadline for applications: February 29th, 2024 at 5 p.m
The Michigan Council for the Social Studies will be awarding three major wards at their in-person conference at Macomb ISD this spring. Elementary, Middle, and High School Social Studies Teacher of the Year awards will be given to outstanding educators from each of these three major grade spans. Learn more and nominate someone by following the link. Deadline for nominations: February 29th, 2024 at 5 p.m.
Summer 2024 Project Based Learning Design Cohort
K-12 educators of any subject area are welcome to attend a three-day workshop beginning on July 31, 2024 at the EUPISD. Check out the Flyer and Registration Link!
Participants will have the opportunity to work with educators who have implemented Project Based Learning in their classrooms. Stipends are available, and educators can apply for funding to help kick-start their project.
👩🏫 Professional Learning 👨🏫
Social Studies Teacher Leader Corps - EUP
Join educators from across the EUP ISD at the Social Studies Teacher Leader Corps! This group gathers to discuss educator needs and develop regional resources for teachers. Several projects are ongoing, including the development of common assessments, supporting inquiry-based education, and strategies for teaching genocide education. Register now via Wisdomwhere!
Our remaining meeting date for the school year is March 12.
MDE: Teaching Comprenesive History webinar series returns!
The Art of History in African American Life and Culture
Wednesday, March 6, 2024, 4-5 p.m. - Registration Link
Wednesday, March 20, 2024, 4-5 p.m. - Registration Link
Tuesday, March 26, 2024, 4-5 p.m. - Registration Link
This webinar series will explore the crucial relationship between art and history in African American life and culture. The presentation will include how African Americans utilized art as a crucial medium for expressing urgent political and social ideas about race, slavery, and freedom. In addition, the presentation will include ways that historians can use art as a source for teaching and learning about the past.
More upcoming webinars can be viewed here!
TOLI Seminar - Genocide Education
Each session will provide content, resources, strategies, and opportunities for collaboration that can point teachers and their students to best classroom practices, including the highest goal of
the C3 Framework: Taking Informed Action to Engage Students in Civic Life.Teaching Social Studies with ArcGIS Online
The Environmental Systems Research Institute (ESRI) hosts a teacher professional development group called Teachers Teaching Teachers GIS (or "T3G"). T3G holds a monthly webinar. For January 2024, they covered "Teaching Social Studies with ArcGIS Online," focusing on getting started, encouraging those "expecting to jump off the boat first" instead to pause and build critical background, using pre-existing content. Good choices and a ramped and scaffolded approach await, with plateaus where people can pause, explore, practice, and evaluate. The webinar video is publicly available online, as is a starting resource doc (Getting Started with GIS for Educators).
More resources from ESRI can be found in their newsletter.
📚 Educator and Administrator Resources 💻
Featured Curricular Resources:
The following open-source curricular resources have been developed specifically for Michigan Social Studies standards.
- MiOpen Book: Digital textbooks with linked activites for grades K-12.
- GIANTS: K-8 curriculum based in the C-3 Framework. GIANTS training is available this year for 5th & 8th grade - US History.
- MC3 Units: K-12 Curricular units developed by Oakland ISD.
- MiSocialStudies.org - Hub for Social Studies resources in Michigan
Video Resources:
- Retro Report - Retro Report is an independent nonprofit newsroom creating trusted documentary videos and classroom resources.
- The World from A to Z - Daily videos modeled after CNN10 - hosted by Carl Azuz.
- CNN10 - 10 minutes of news updates for classrooms.
General Resources:
- NEW - 2024 - Social Studies Resources from Scott Koenig, MDE Social Studies Consultant. This slide deck is curated by subject area with a table of contents on slide 2.
- Teacher compiled list of resources for culturally relevant classrooms.
Picturing Michigan's Past - Primary Source Resource
The Clements Library (University of Michigan) welcomes volunteers to assist with transcribing historical documents. As part of the library’s digitization program, they have started to make selected archival collections available online. The next step to make these materials fully available for research is to transcribe handwritten text and provide descriptions for visual materials.
Help us out on Zooniverse to categorize and transcribe 60,000 postcard photographs of Michigan history, drawn from the rich holdings of the David V. Tinder collection of Michigan Photography. Picturing Michigan’s Past is a project developed in partnership with the Shapiro Design Lab at the University of Michigan Library.
The Clements Library also has virtual exhibits available of their collections.
Bill of Rights in Action - Vol 1.1
The new Bill of Rights in Action journal is available to download. In this issue, featured articles include:
-
U.S. History: Emancipation Day: Past and Present
U.S. Government: Endangered Species Act at 50 Years
U.S. History/Current Events: The Constitution, Reconstruction, and Race-Conscious Admissions
Articles are reproducible for the classroom and feature:
- Writing and discussion questions
- Small-group activities
- National C3 Framework Indicators, California content standards, and Common Core State Standards addressed
- Complete sources listed
Personal Finance Memo - MDE
Formative Assessment in Social Studies
Levin Center: Portraits in Oversight
High school resource: Oversight Investigations: Oversight investigations are held to determine or examine the events or decisions made by another branch or section of the government. To help explain, the Levin Center has developed portraits of important congressional oversight investigations as well as some key past figures in oversight. These are excellently researched portraits with primary sources included.
Learn more about the Levin Center here.
Michigan Department of Education - Teaching Comprehensive History Webinar Series
✋ Michigan Soc. Studies Organizations 👍
Michigan Council for the Social Studies
Free Memberships for Pre-Service Teachers:
- MCSS is offering free memberships for preservice teachers. As a member, pre-service teachers will be able to share ideas and insights with colleagues throughout the state, have access to new resource materials, and a wealth of useful services. Pre-service teachers can develop and share ideas on the future of social studies in schools, especially the concerns of teacher preparation and innovative methodology.
- To join, pre-service teachers would need to go to the MCSS website and join as a student - uploading an image of their student ID is required. Juniors can join and renew again next year! Students do not need to have a planned social studies endorsement to join - this membership will be valuable to all elementary-track pre-service teachers.
MCSS Toolkit: UPDATED 1/31
- The Winter 2024 issue of the MCSS Toolkit is now available!
MCSS Professional Learning
- Some of the most highly rated presenters from the Spring 2023 conference in Traverse City have agreed to run their conference sessions one more time - a second chance for some of you to see an amazing session again or to catch something you missed out on because there were too many good choices. Whichever camp you fall into, you can look at the currently scheduled sessions here.
- Save the Date: the MCSS Conference will take place on May 3-4, 2024 at Macomb ISD in Clinton Twp, MI.
The Great Lakes Social Studies Journal - Call for Submissions
The Great Lakes Social Studies Journal is seeking submissions to complement the MCSS Conference Theme: Destination Democracy. The editors welcome articles, lesson plans, poems, podcasts, or artwork from educators (and/or their students) that promote the knowledge, skills and dispositions for individual or collective actions to further the common good (political or non-political). Submissions may include, but are not limited to highlighting civic engagement such as investigating multiple sources, identifying biases, developing media literacy skills, and making informed decisions.
Submissions should be between 1,000-5,000 words (excluding references) and submitted in a Microsoft Word document to ldoornbos@oakland.edu. Please include a cover page with your name, school/university, email, and a short bio. Videos and images can be sent as separate files or links. Submissions will be reviewed by anonymous reviewers. Please make sure submissions are free of identifying information within the text for review, other than the cover page. Submissions are due by January 31, 2024.
Check out the featured articles in the Fall 2023 Great Lakes Social Studies Journal:
- Teaching for Social Empathy
- There's no place like home: A place-based approach to social studies education
- Teaching a well-informed citizenry: Introducing Learning by Hearings in to Civic Education
- Families in Reconstruction
Michigan Council on Economic Education
Personal Finance & Junior Achievement curriculum programs
If you have any experience with this curriculum or feedback you can provide please share with Derek D’Angelo (derek@michiganecon.org)
If you have anyone who would be interested in piloting any JA curriculum please let me know as well!
April 15, 2024 at Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago-Detroit Branch
April 15, 2024 at Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago-Detroit Branch
Economics lessons for elementary students
FIT (Financial Intelligence Teacher) national certification now available
On-demand Economics professional development through Foundation for Economic Education
One-hour modules for each of the 20 national standards for Economics
SCECH available
Professional development webinars available through Council for Economic Education
Usually one hour in length.
SCECH available
10 hours per certification
SCECH available
DPSCD Investment Club pilot with 5 Detroit high schools
April is Financial Literacy Month.
Foundation for Economic Education Teacher Resources
- Contact Derek D'Angelo with questions - derek@michiganecon.org
Michigan Center for Civic Education
We the People: The primary goal of We the People: The Citizen and the Constitution is to promote civic competence, responsibility, appreciation, and enthusiasm for the Constitution and our societal issues among the nation’s upper elementary and secondary students. Please email Ellen at ezwarensteyn@miciviced.org for information about joining this program.
Mock Trial Clinics: Mock Trial is an extra-curricular, co-curricular, and curricular program. Mock Trial advances knowledge and skills incorporating trial procedure, justice, rule of law, and more while encouraging teamwork, collaboration, and public speaking skills.
Michigan Council for History Education
The Annette and Jim McConnell Teacher of the Year Awards honor the best history teacher each year at the elementary, high school, and pre-service levels. To Nominate a Teacher:
Send a nomination letter that should explain the attributes of the nominee as well as the description of a particular lesson. 1-3 additional letters of recommendation should be included in your nomination. Additional items that are encouraged in any nomination are lesson plans, copies of anonymous student work, and student testimonials.
Send nominations by MAY 1 each year to: Nick Orlowski at teachinghistoryinmi@gmail.com
United States Senate Youth Program (USSYP)
DECEMBER 2023 UPDATE: 2024 Winners will be announced soon, and the 2025 application will go live late in summer 2024!
The 62nd United States Senate Youth Program (USSYP) provides an opportunity for qualified high school juniors and seniors to deepen their understanding of America’s political processes. Please make sure this opportunity is available to all interested students. Qualifications for this program are located at: www.ussenateyouth.org
Michigan Financial Wellness Network
The Smart Money MI Kids Read Program is taking place again in April, during Financial Literacy Month. Last year, Lt. Gov Gilchrist read "Give It!" by Cinders McLeod aloud - a video can be found on the Michigan Financial Wellness Network website.
Another new/original book under development: Owl+Otter and the Big Talent Show. 12,000 copies ordered. Learning includes counting, addition, subtraction, wants vs needs, friendship, collaboration. Targeting pre-K thru 2nd grade. School-based special programs are possible with credit union partnerships to acquire copies of the book at no cost to schools.
- Check out the MI Financial Wellness website for more programs & resources.
Michigan Geographic Alliance
The Michigan Geographic Alliance as an updated website with a new url: se.cmich.edu/mga
There are new Giant Maps available - check out the new website for more information!
❄Winter Heritage & Awareness ❄
Monday, January 15 - Martin Luther King Day
Monday, January 15, 2024 is Martin Luther King Day. You can learn more about the history of this holiday by visiting the National Museum of African American History and Culture or the National Constitution Center. Many celebrate this holiday as a Day of Service to others and their communities.
February is Black History Month
Blackhistorymonth.gov: The Library of Congress, National Archives and Records Administration, National Endowment for the Humanities, National Gallery of Art, National Park Service, Smithsonian Institution and United States Holocaust Memorial Museum join in paying tribute to the generations of African Americans who struggled with adversity to achieve full citizenship in American society. This site shares upcoming events and panel discussions on a variety of topics, primary sources, exhibits, and resources for educators.
Oakland Schools Social Studies Team has curated resources for Black History Month 2023. Resources are divided by grade level, and include important considerations for teaching Black History.
The attached Google Slide deck shares short biographies of notable African Americans. Each slide has a short paragraph, famous quote, photograph, and video.
March is Women's History Month
Womenshistorymonth.gov/: The Library of Congress, National Archives and Records Administration, National Endowment for the Humanities, National Gallery of Art, National Park Service, Smithsonian Institution and United States Holocaust Memorial Museum join in commemorating and encouraging the study, observance and celebration of the vital role of women in American history. This site shares events, primary sources, exhibits, and resources for educators.
Oakland Schools has curated many Michigan-based resources for Women's History Month.
The National Women's History Museum has many curated resources for educators and students, including History Day project ideas, biographies, virtual museum tours, and more.
The Michigan Women's Historical Society & Hall of Fame has a digital timeline of inductees that spans decades.
Helen Craig
Social Studies Curriculum Consultant
Regional School Health Coordinator
McKinney-Vento UPCED Facilitator
Eastern Upper Peninsula ISD
Email: hcraig-isd@eupschools.org
Website: https://www.eupschools.org/Page/6003
Phone: 906-632-3373 -5132