250th Anniversary Teacher Workshop

Stipends available for 24 K-12 teachers to attend workshop in July 2024

Are you ready for 2026? The 250th anniversary of American Independence is just around the corner. Get ready to immerse your students in the rich history of Vermont’s crucial role in the Revolution! Join us for an extraordinary educational experience that will elevate your teaching by embracing the power of historic sites and archaeology.

  • Teaching with Historic Sites: Learn how to effectively utilize Vermont’s historic sites as dynamic classrooms. Enrich your teaching by integrating virtual and in-person field trips to these sites into your curriculum.
  • Innovative Learning: Discover cutting-edge teaching techniques that will make history come alive in your classroom. Don’t just teach about history – teach through it to engage your students in more meaningful ways!
  • Archaeological Inquiry: Gain insights into the world of archaeology and explore how it can be used as a powerful educational tool. Connect your students with the past through hands-on and virtual archaeological activities.
  • Place-based Pedagogy: Learn how to engage students in lessons that foreground a multiplicity of historic perspectives, connections between humans and the environment, and our current responsibilities to care for our local communities.

“Freedom and Unity: The Struggle for Independence on the Vermont Frontier”
K-12 Teacher Training Workshop in Place-based Education

Workshop participants will complete 20 hours of asynchronous online learning activities June 15 – July 7, 2024 (on their own time).

During July 15 – 19, 2024, participants will attend a “summer camp” week of on-site afternoon sessions at five historic sites: Chimney Point, Lake Champlain Maritime Museum, Mount Independence, Hubbardton Battlefield, and Ethan Allen Homestead Museum.

Following the workshop, participants will develop their own place-based learning activity, lesson plan, or curricular unit to be shared freely with other Vermont teachers.

Participants will receive 40 hours of continuing education units. Participants will also receive $250 stipends to offset costs associated with their participation thanks to the generous funding of Vermont’s 250th Anniversary Commission.

“Freedom and Unity: The Struggle for Independence on the Vermont Frontier,” will feature an integrated program of place-based and participatory learning activities related to the events and personalities of the American Revolution at partnering historic sites in Vermont’s Champlain Valley.

Workshop participants will follow a route, on land and water, from a yeoman Vermonter’s 18th-century homestead to war, and back again. Along the way, they will encounter the landscapes, artifacts, sites, and primary sources that allow students to engage with the multiple stories and competing worldviews of frontier Vermont—and to relate them to the persisting tensions between rural and urban communities across contemporary America. While on board the life-sized replica of Benedict Arnold’s USS Philadelphia gunboat or exploring the nation’s best-preserved Revolutionary War archaeological site at Mount Independence, teachers will learn firsthand the potential of place-based education at historic sites: to provide personally resonant experiences that serve as a foundation for understanding contemporary issues of regional, national, or global importance.

The project is co-directed by Dr. Angela Labrador, VAS Past-President, and Mr. Jason Barney, award-winning Social Studies teacher at Missisquoi Valley Union High School in Swanton. They will be joined by faculty at each of the partnering institutions to deliver this innovative program that showcases Vermont’s unique Revolutionary War heritage. Participants will earn continuing education units for their work. 

Stay tuned to this webpage for application details and deadlines.

Contact:
Angela Labrador, angela@vtarchaeology.org
Jason Barney, jason@vtarchaeology.org

This workshop is funded by a generous grant from Vermont’s 250th Anniversary Commission, whose mission is to “inspire all Vermonters to learn from the history, legacy, and context of the past to build strong Vermont communities for the future.” Learn more: Vermont’s 250th Anniversary Commission