See Stories was awarded a Library of Congress Teaching with Primary Sources Grant in partnership with the Alaska Humanities Forum and the UAA Professional and Continuing Education Program. This funding will support a virtual teacher training for social studies educators from throughout Alaska to learn about how they can support their students to submit documentary films to Alaska History Day, which is the social studies equivalent to the science fair. The graduate level course for teachers will be held online, and teachers from throughout Alaska are encouraged to apply (teacher application to be released in August). The funding is dispersed through the TPS at MSU Denver Program.

Participating educators will learn how they can utilize Alaskan primary sources, in particular sources from Library of Congress online collections, to support their students to create films that document uniquely Alaskan stories. While See Stories and Alaska Humanities Forum staff members will facilitate the course, a handful of guest educators will help shape the project. Leah Geibel, Archivist at the Alaska State Archives, will serve as project advisor and support teachers to build archival resources for their students. Jim Labelle Sr., an Iñupiaq elder from Nome and retired UAA Professor of Alaska Native Studies, will share his personal story of utilizing archival research and primary sources to explore the records of his childhood boarding school experience to process his trauma. Dr. Ian Hartmann, Professor of History at UAA, will engage teachers in both how to utilize Library of Congress Primary Sources as well as other archival resources in Alaska. Gabrielle Dudley, Instruction Archivist at the Stuart A. Rose Manuscript, Archives and Rare Book Library at Emory University will lead a session on how to effectively shape a student’s first encounter with a primary source, and she will also serve as project advisor.

If you are an Alaskan 7th – 12th grade teacher interested in this fully funded professional development opportunity, please email marie@seestories.org with “TPS Grant Inquiry” in the subject line to receive more information as well as the application in August.