Social Studies in the EUP

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

hcraig-isd@eupschools.org

Congratulations to all students and schools who participated in Regional History Day 2024! All students have received feedback from judges in the Zfairs registration system.

The State History Day competition was held on April 20 in Mt. Pleasant, MI. The EUP was well represented - we are so proud of everyone who participated! Thank you to students & families who supported their students' attendance at the event. Several projects placed at the state level, including:

• The Triangle Shirtwaist Fire - Pickford, Individual Website - Youth, 1st Place
• The Aftermath of September 11 - Pickford, Group Website - Youth, 1st Place
• The Race to Space - JKL Bahweting, Group Website - Youth, 3rd place
• The Trail of Tears - JKL Bahweting, Group Performance - Junior, National Finalists
  
• The Shot Heard Round the World that Started World War 1 - DeTour, Paper, National Alternate

If I missed any regional projects - please let me know! We hope students were inspired by seeing projects from around the state and are coming home with big ideas for next year.

Conference title: Destination: Democracy

Dates: May 3-4

Location: Macomb ISD (Clinton Township, MI)

Register Here

In June 2019, the Michigan Department of Education (MDE) adopted a revised version of the Michigan K-12 social studies standards. These standards can be accessed directly from the MDE website using this link: Michigan K-12 Standards for Social Studies.

Since 2019, MDE has worked with Michigan educators to write assessment items aligned with these revised standards. Additionally, current items in the M-STEP assessment pool have been either re-aligned or removed from the pool altogether if they do not align with the revised standards. Since many of the standards now being used have not changed from their previous 2007 versions, many of the existing items are still appropriately aligned to the new 2019 standards.

MDE is asking educators for their input into the blueprint of the M-STEP social studies assessment. This input will help determine what, if any, changes need to be made to the test. The blueprint discussion will take place June 17-18, 2024, at Data Recognition Corporation’s office in East Lansing. Please indicate your interest in attending the social studies blueprint discussion by completing this interest form

The Social Studies Teacher Leader Corps is seeking 8th-12th grade social studies teachers to complete an assessment review this summer (June 2024 - dates TBD). Common assessments were developed based on the 2007 standards and need to be updated to the 2019 standards. This 3 day workshop would include the following:

• $150 daily stipend + lunch provided
• Workshop goals: review previously written items, edit & rewrite as needed, seek new materials for the assessments.

The 2nd through 7th grade assessments have been completed and will launch for the 2024-25 school year. This session's goal is to complete the 8th grade assessment, U.S. History assessment, and additional subject areas as able.

If you are interested in being part of the team, please note interest in the poll below:

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.

The National Council for Social Studies is offering a virtual summer conference from June 24-25 and the subject is Inquire and Inspire: Cross-Disciplinary Learning in Elementary Classrooms. This fits well with the work that the social studies elementary team has been doing! There is a discounted rate if groups of 4+. Here is the website with more info: https://www.socialstudies.org/professional-learning/2024-ncss-summer-virtual-conference

Elementary teachers who can commit to attending, please email me by Friday, May 3. So far, two people have committed to attend. If we have a group of 4+, the discounted rate is $69 per person. I am requesting ISD funds to cover this so there would be no cost to districts. Teachers would be able to connect from home or if there's enough interest, a room at the ISD central office could be used for us to connect virtually together.

My ask for teachers who participate would be for you to attend at least one social studies team meeting in the 24-25 school year to follow up on what we've learned & how you're applying it in your classroom. Contact me at hcraig-isd@eupschools.org for more details!

Women's Anti-Slavery Activism
Wednesdays, May 1, 8, and 15, 2024, 4-5 p.m.
This webinar series will look through the life and times of Harriet Jacobs to explore Black women's experiences in slavery, women's anti-slavery activism, and the importance of source material such as slave narratives. By learning about the history of Jacobs' famous slave narrative and looking at letters and other source material, participants will know more about Jacobs and her world full of women dedicated to radical social change.

More upcoming webinars can be viewed here!

Are you a 3rd, 4th, or 5th grade teacher who uses Oakland Schools' MC3 Curriculum? Join us to learn about teaching the revised MC3courses!

The Zekelman Holocaust Center’s 2024 Summer Academy for Educators is now open for registration! The Academy will take place at The Zekelman Holocaust Center from 9:00 AM to 4:00 PM each day. It is free for all participants and includes lunch and snacks. Participants will receive classroom resources and up to 20 SCECH hours. Participants can register for one or two sessions, a full day, or for the whole week.

We are proud to announce some exciting changes to this summer’s program:

• Themes: The workshops will center around a daily theme: The Human Story, Ideology, and Resistance.
• Daily Launch: Each day will begin with a “Morning Launch” that will explain the day’s theme, content goals, and objectives.
• Content levels: The workshop schedule is designed to meet the needs of both new and veteran Holocaust teachers. Some workshops focus on general content more broadly; others go deeper into content for those with greater content knowledge.
• Exhibit tours: There will be daily opportunities to explore the new core exhibit through the lens of the day’s theme with one of our museum educators.
• Inquiry Skills Practice: Each day will conclude with skills practice and application session focused on the Inquiry Design Model.

To learn more about this year’s sessions or to register, please visit:

https://www.holocaustcenter.org/summeracademy/

If you have questions about Summer Academy, or registration, please email or call Rick Schaffner, Manager of Outreach and Teacher Education at rick.schaffner@holocaustcenter.org or 248-556-3663.

This Informed Action seminar is designed to be place-based, equipping teachers to first explore Holocaust, genocide, and human rights history through a local lens, then look together at work happening in Michigan communities to address, understand, and redress the impact of history on the lived experiences of Michigan residents and the communities we share.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

The MDE launched the Personal Finance Memo. Please reference this document to assist you with personal finance understandings under the new law. The MDE is also working closely industry, education partners, and students to help drive supports for this new requirement. Please reference the personal finance website for foundational resources and future updates/supporting materials.

The Michigan Council for Social Studies and the Michigan Assessment Consortium have developed a Formative Assessment in Social Studies guide. The document was published this summer following an extensive review process. You can view it here, or on the Michigan Assessment Consortium website.

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.

MDE launched its comprehensive history webinar series in April 2022 with the purpose of assisting educators in learning about historical movements, events, and peoples that are part of the rich, diverse history of our country and world. This webinar series will continue in the 2023-24 school year - stay tuned for more information!

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.
  

Check out the featured articles in the Spring 2024 Great Lakes Social Studies Journal:

• Social Studies Teaching and Learning: It's a Mission and Society Depends on Us
  
• Teaching Modern American History: We (Still) Didn't Start the Fire
  
• A More Perfect Alphabet: Exploring Antebellum Spelling Reform through Primary Sources
  
• But the Memory Remains: Teacher Education with Local Archives
• A Collective Responsibility and Inquiry Approach to Teaching Media Literacy
  

• Summer Personal Finance Conference in Grand Rapids June 18-19, 2024

• June 18 at LMCU Ballpark followed by a Whitecaps game

• June 19 at LMCU Headquarters

• Content & Pedagogy - Hear from experts in the field including the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis and amazing educators on pedagogical best practices.

• $150 teacher stipends available

• Registration will open next week

• Summer Personal Finance Conference in Detroit at the Federal Reserve

• August 12-13, 2024

• August 12, 2024 NGPF Fincamp

• August 13, 2024 c3 Inquiry Lessons for Personal Finance & FIT Certification

• Registration should open next week through NGPF

• Council for Economic Education 63rd Financial Literacy & Economic Education Conference

• September 27-28 in Cleveland, OH

• Econ 101: Taylor’s Version from the Foundation for Economic Education

• 30 grab and go student worksheets to help teach Econ where every example connects back to Taylor Swift

• Economic Marvels from the Foundation for Economic Education

• FIT Certification for Personal Finance from the Foundation for Economic Education

• Contact Derek D'Angelo with questions - derek@michiganecon.org
  

• 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

May 11-15 is Civic Learning Week! Check out the programs below offered by the 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.

The Michigan Geographic Alliance as an updated website with a new url: se.cmich.edu/mga

• Come see us at MCSS! Map room with fun games, giant maps, FGN kit, 3 sessions, and MGA resource giveaways.

• Map Michigan Contest under way, with both middle and high school entries from science and social classrooms across the state. This is a partnership with CMU and ESRI. Winners announced May 5th, and sent to National Contest

• Giant Map rentals wrapping up for the year, and starting to fill up for next year. Current maps with activities include Michigan, North America, South America, Europe, Asia, and Africa. New addition for next year TCs and Pre-service educators can conduct activities depending on availability email mga@cmich.edu.

• Micheal J Libbee Professional Development Scholarship is being set up to provide opportunities for inservice teachers to learn and promote geography education.

Under Public Act 170 of 2016, the board of a school district or charter school must ensure that its school's social studies curriculum for grades 8 to 12 include age and grade appropriate instruction about genocide, including but not limited to the Holocaust, and the Armenian genocide. The statute "recommends" a combined total of six hours of such instruction during grades 8 to 12. The resources below are shared to support educators in learning and teaching about the Holocaust.

To commemorate Genocide Awareness Month in April, join Echoes & Reflections to learn about the lessons of the Holocaust and help students prevent the escalation of antisemitism and other forms of hate in their schools and communities.

The USC Shoah Foundation is dedicated to making audio-visual interviews with survivors and witnesses of the Holocaust and other genocides. Their website has resources and professional learning for both educators and students.

The Zekelman Holocaust Center (Farmington Hills, MI) has an educator resource page. In past years, several Eastern UP schools have taken field trips to the Holocaust Center.

The Michigan Holocaust and Genocide Education website was created for individuals who want to teach and learn about genocides, or to connect to museums and events happening in Michigan. Resources and lesson plans around the Armenian Genocide are available.

The Arab America Foundation celebrates Arab American Heritage Month in April. Education Resources are available through their website.

Oakland Schools ISD has curated resources for Arab American Heritage Month, including resources from the Arab American National Museum in Dearborn, Michigan. Resources include special events, lesson plans, primary source collections, and more!

Checkout the resources below from the Michican eLibrary to help your class celebrate Earth Day:

Elementary

There are two sections that stand out in PebbleGo Social Studies. Helping the Environment has read-aloud articles on Cleaning up Litter, Composting, Reusing and Recycling, and Saving Water. Additionally, under Holidays there is an article on the activities and history associated with Earth Day. In the eBook K-8 Collection students are introduced to recycling in the title, Go Green by Recycling, and enjoy some Earth-Friendly Earth Day Crafts from the eBook Public Library Collection.

Middle School

Zero Waste Kids, also from the eBook Public Library Collection, explains the process for making recycled paper as well as ideas for repurposing materials and building a compost bin. Under the Earth’s environment at a glance in Britannica School Middle, there are several curated lists of linked content on Climate, Ecological Concerns, Environmental Issues, Planet Earth, and related Biographies.

High School

Gale in Context: Opposing Viewpoints showcases a wide range of content including videos, audio files, images, viewpoints, and articles such as “Debunking the ‘Recycling Myth’, Starting with Its Symbol” which highlights one woman’s quest to firm up labeling laws. Lastly, Earth Day & the Environmental Movement from the eBook High School Collection delivers a detailed history of what led to Earth Day and the progress and failures since.

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 Asian and Pacific Islanders who have enriched America's history and are instrumental in its future success. There is an extensive collection of resources available at asianpacificheritage.gov.

Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Pride Month (LGBT Pride Month) is celebrated annually in June to honor the 1969 Stonewall riots, and works to achieve equal justice and equal opportunity for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and questioning (LGBTQ) Americans. For more information and resources, check out Youth.Gov.

*image from https://www.charities.org/news/lgbtqia-pride-month-2022

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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

Background photo by Alexandra Vo on Unsplash