Pennsylvania

National History Day in Pa

by fifer1863 on May 18, 2011

Recently I had the opportunity to judge at the Pennsylvania State National History Day Competition at Millersville University.  What a great couple of days!  It was exciting walking around campus seeing students talking about history.  There were students dressed as various characters from history for the performance category and displays that filled the gym at the school.

What is National History Day?

According to the National History Day website, “National History Day makes history come alive for America’s youth by engaging them in the discovery of the historic, cultural and social experiences of the past. Through hands-on experiences and presentations, today’s youth are better able to inform the present and shape the future. NHD inspires children through exciting competitions and transforms teaching through project-based curriculum and instruction.”

National History Day in Pennsylvania

Pennsylvania has it’s own section of the NHD website at http://pa.nhd.org along with a Facebook page to keep students and teachers informed about various events that are occurring throughout the year.

Jeff Hawks, who is the education director for the Army Heritage Education Center in Carlisle, is the statewide coordinator for NHD here in PA.  Jeff did a terrific job this year running the state competition and he and his team deserve a great deal of credit for keeping things under control and on time.

And the Winners are…

You can view a list of winners on the PA NHD State Website.

If you would like to view the websites that won, here is a quick little trick until they get published.  Go the the winners page and then click on say Junior Individual Websites and you should see that the Apple Indians: Red on the Outside, White On the Inside website won that category. Now, to find out what that site looks like, here is what you can do:

Copy the title of the website: Apple Indians: Red on the Outside, White On the Inside

Go to http://www.google.com

Type “Apple Indian: Red on the Outside, White On the Inside” site: nhd.weebly.com into the search bar and click Search

That’s it!  You should see links to the winning website.  You can do this for all of the winning websites by just changing the name of the entry in quotes.  Remember there are four website categories:  junior individual, senior individual, junior group and senior group.

Congrats to all the winners!

 

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PA Civil War 150th Road Show

by fifer1863 on April 17, 2011

Here is an old press release that I found and thought I’d share from the PA Civil War 150th committee. In 2011, the Pennsylvania Civil War Road Show will travel to 22 counties across the state to share the incredible personal stories of Pennsylvania’s men, women and children during the war. The Road Show packs an impressive amount of interactive exhibits on the Civil War experience in Pennsylvania into a 53-foot expandable trailer. It will also collect Pennsylvania’s Civil War history county by county, inviting people to share Civil War artifacts, photographs and stories in a recording booth. Over the four-year anniversary of the Civil War (2011-2015), the Road Show will travel to all 67 counties in Pennsylvania.

[click to continue…]

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PA Civil War 150 Website

by Jim on October 9, 2009

The Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission (also on Twitter @phmc) launched a new website dedicated to the 150th anniversary of the Civil War and the role Pennsylvania played in that war.  In addition to the new website, the commission also announced that there will be a Pennsylvania Civil War Road Show.  According to a press release, the Road Show will be “a traveling museum experience based in a 53-foot tractor trailer that will bring interactive exhibits and unique programming to all 67 counties in the state from 2011 to 2015.”

According to Barbara Franco, the Executive Director for the PHMC, “The Pennsylvania Civil War 150 commemoration is far more than a formal remembrance. It is a collection of stories brought to life that are as epic as the fields at Gettysburg or as small as the struggles of a soldier’s wife working to survive her husband’s absence on a Pennsylvania farm. Through these stories, Pennsylvania Civil War 150 will renew interest and engagement in our state’s heritage.”

Logo_PA Civil War 150The new (and very interactive ) website is packed with information for you and your students to learn about Pennsylvania’s role in the Civil War.  They have broken the website into four distinct sections:  Understanding, The War, Through People and Then and Now.

Under the section on Understanding, the website provides some excellent information related to understanding the cause and events leading up the the Civil War.  The TIMELINE section shows events beginning in 1780 with PA Abolishing Slavery up to 1877 (Compromise of 1877).  This section also provides pictures and a narrative of various primary sources related to a particular year.  The Understanding section also provides information on Pennsylvania’s Role, the Home Front, Slavery, and the Role of Religion.

Within the WAR section of the website, visitors can learn about Battlefields and Tactics along with the Weaponry and Uniforms of Civil War soldiers.

The THROUGH PEOPLE section of the website contains some outstanding stories from Pennsylvanians on how they experienced the Civil War.  There are stories of Children, prominent politicians like Governor Curtain, and stories of women and other civilians.  This section has some great photographs of the individuals that can easily be used to start a classroom conversation.

Web site_Personal Stories

The Then and Now section provides some brief snapshots into how various things such as Industry & Commerce, Government and Politics and Media and Communications (check out the photo).

In addition to all of the stories, photographs, bibliographic references and primary sources, the website offers ways for you and your students to participate in the discussion and to share your stories.  You can also Experience the Civil War through an an interactive map along with a great collection of artifacts.  These resources provide more great opportunities for teachers and students to explore and discuss.

Finally, there is a terrific section dedicated to resources for Teachers.  This section provides some great links to resources and lessons for teaching the Civil War which are aligned to the Pa State History Standards.

cw150teachers

Check out the full PRESS RELEASE

So, take some time and explore this great new resource.  There is more to come with this website so be sure to check back often for new resources.

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Pa Civil War Trails, Google Earth and Gigapan

April 29, 2009

I’m starting to use Google Earth more and more these days for different projects and presentations.  So in addition to previous posts related to Google Earth, I was looking around for some resources today and happened onto the Pennsylvania Civil War Trails website.  One of the cool things I noticed is that they now have [...]

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