Story provided by National History Day
Ms. Jennifer Eckel, a teacher at Stillwater Junior High School in Stillwater, Oklahoma, is one of only 98 teachers selected for a National History Day® (NHD) summer professional development program. This new course focuses on using online Library of Congress resources to develop and support historical arguments and is a feature of NHD’s membership in the Library of Congress Teaching with Primary Sources (TPS) Consortium. Over the course of the series, Ms. Eckel has explored digitized primary sources from the Library of Congress, engaged in four live webinar programs and discussions with fellow educators from across the country, and developed resources to use with students in her classroom.
The National History Day program in Oklahoma selected Ms. Eckel. NHD affiliates include all 50 states and the District of Columbia, American Samoa, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, Puerto Rico, and international school programs in China, South Asia, and South Korea.
“As a TPS Consortium member, we are thrilled to utilize the vast array of digitized primary sources made available online by the Library of Congress,” said National History Day Executive Director Dr. Cathy Gorn. “At the conclusion of this course, Ms. Eckel will be able to share with her students the key strategies for researching, supporting, and presenting historical arguments backed up by these primary sources. This is a crucial skill in teaching and learning good history, and is especially valuable now when so many students and teachers across the country are engaged in remote learning due to the coronavirus pandemic.”
As one of the selected teachers, Ms. Eckel receives free tuition, graduate credits, and materials for the online program.
About National History Day® (NHD)
NHD is a non-profit organization based in College Park, Maryland, which seeks to improve the teaching and learning of history. The National History Day Contest was established in 1974 and currently engages more than half a million students every year in conducting original research on historical topics of interest. Students present their research as a documentary, exhibit, paper, performance, or website. Projects compete first at the local and affiliate levels, where the top entries are invited to the National Contest at the University of Maryland at College Park. NHD is sponsored in part by HISTORY®, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the National Park Service, Southwest Airlines, The Better Angels Society, Jacqueline B. Mars, and BBVA. For more information, visit nhd.org.
About the Oklahoma History Center
The Oklahoma History Center is a division of the Oklahoma Historical Society and is an affiliate of the Smithsonian Institution, National Archives and is an accredited member of the American Alliance of Museums. The mission of the Oklahoma Historical Society is to collect, preserve, and share the history and culture of the state of Oklahoma and its people. Founded in 1893 by members of the Territorial Press Association, the OHS maintains museums, historic sites, and affiliates across the state. Through its research archives, exhibits, educational programs and publications the OHS chronicles the rich history of Oklahoma. For more information about the OHS, please visit www.okhistory.org.