UW, Community College Personnel Invited to Participate in Wyoming Civics Education Project

University of Wyoming and community college personnel and topical experts are invited to become content contributors to a National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) grant project funded at UW.

“Integrating the Humanities Across Civics Education in Wyoming” builds on the existing work of UW’s Wallop Civic Engagement K-12 Curriculum Project. The project provides a library of free virtual resources for K-12 social studies teachers for classroom use.

A stipend of $500 per content package for those who participate in the Wallop NEH K-12 curriculum project this summer will be available to participants.

The program directors are Jean Garrison, a UW professor of political science and international studies in the School of Politics, Public Affairs and International Studies; and Jason McConnell, an assistant professor of political science in the School of Politics, Public Affairs and International Studies.

An informational Zoom meeting to discuss the project is scheduled at 5:30 p.m. Wednesday, April 20. To receive a link to the Zoom meeting, email McConnell at jasonmac@uwyo.edu.

The NEH-funded program will expand the digital resources in the existing multimedia catalog in social studies and create a new catalog in English language arts by focusing on three themes: culture and peoples of the West; identity, community and rural life; and rights, liberties and civic responsibilities. The project brings together a diverse set of humanities, arts, social science and education partners to work with Wyoming teachers on issues of central importance to the nation’s democracy, public institutions and core issues of importance in America today, Garrison and McConnell say.

The goal is to create content that contributes to one or more of the six Wyoming Social Studies Content Standards or Wyoming English Language Arts Standards for K-12 education. The Wyoming Department of Education is responsible for setting the standards, which define what students are expected to know and do by the time they graduate.

To view the social studies catalog, visit UW’s WyoLearn catalog at https://uwyo3.catalog.instructure.com/; click on the course titled “Malcolm Wallop Civic Engagement Project”; click on the option titled “Wallop K-12 Curriculum Project-Social Studies”; and log in/create an account.

For more information about the project, email Garrison at garrison@uwyo.edu or McConnell at jasonmac@uwyo.edu, or visit the website at www.uwyo.edu/wallop.