Middle school students learned about their community when they created documentaries as part of a state bicentennial celebration. Students gathered multiple primary and secondary resources and worked with community members to interview them for their perspectives through video presentations as part of the inquiry process. Students work with local…

Given the recent and ongoing debates about race and inclusion, history classes can turn to the study of local groups that have been marginalized in an effort to increase students' cultural awareness. One such local history project took place in Evansville, Indiana from 2011 to 2013 through collaboration between the University of Southern Indiana…

Teacher practices created experiences for students to guide their inquiry by creating opportunities to gather data through field notes. Students examined their county and gathered data from the field on a daylong investigation of their county. Students generated questions and considered their observations at multiple stops. Students learned to…

Lessons in community building and cultural understanding are important aspects of a 21st-century education. Through such lessons, students gain the keys to societal understanding as they gain knowledge about their cultural and historical contexts, and use that understanding as a setting for exploration of deeper values, emotional experiences, and…

Recent literature on history teaching has emphasized "doing history"--whether as "active learning", cognitive science, or with simple photocopies of primary sources. This article extends the discussion of a "signature pedagogy" of history to include all aspects of the work of historians, from archival research through…

Jon Carl's vision is simple: get students passionate about history by turning them into historians. To accomplish this, he created a class centered on documentary film-making. Students choose a topic, conduct research at local libraries, write a script, film video interviews, and create video segments of four to 15 minutes. District technology…

Teachers use a number of instructional strategies to help students develop citizenship skills and learn state and local history. In many communities, teachers include field trips and walking tours to help students learn more about people. In this article, the author describes how third-grade students learned from older students and from their…

The article gives a brief overview of the Mexicano experience in East Chicago, Indiana during the 1920s and characterizes it within the context of the Mexicano unskilled laborer experience in a region where productive increases were of tantamount importance. (AUTHOR/NQ)

Service-learning projects help students make connections to their community and help them to think about civic participation. The projects can range from very simple short-term philanthropy to very complex direct involvement by the students across multiple years. Students learn both social problem-solving skills and academic knowledge through…

This guide provides information for planning a field trip to the Indiana Limestone District. This district, located in Monroe and Lawrence Counties, Indiana, is responsible for material that has dominated the building-limestone market in the United States for nearly a century. A few of the many well-known buildings using Indiana limestone are the…

The purposes of this bibliography are to bring together materials that relate to the history of newspapers in Indiana and to assess, in a general way, the value of the material. The bibliography contains 415 entries, with descriptive annotations, arranged in seven sections: books; special materials; general newspaper histories and lists of…

This study of Muncie, Indiana, during the years 1891-93, when the older marshal/constable system of law enforcement was replaced by a modern municipal police force, shows the tensions faced by that community as a result of a late but sudden industrial growth. (RM)

This teacher's guide for the instruction of economic concepts at the seventh grade level uses Evansville's (Indiana) historical development to further the study of concepts such as economic needs and wants, factors of production, and opportunity cost. The first part of the guide, "Introducing Basic Economic Concepts," uses the text…

The article suggests that the regional origins constitute an important factor in determining the variations in the establishment of Chicano communities. Compared are the experiences of Mexicans in the community area of South Chicago, Illinois and a closely situated city, East Chicago, Indiana. (NQ)

This issue continues the Indiana Historical Bureau's collaboration with the Division of Historic Preservation and Archaeology, Indiana Department of Natural Resources. The articles include "The Science of Archaeology," chronicling the remarkable transformation of the science of archaeology to date; "Archaeology in Indiana,"…