Happy holidays to all who celebrate — and happy holiday break to all the teachers in our network! We hope you can all take the break you deserve and spend some downtime relaxing or enjoying the company of family and friends.
In the spirit of spending time with loved ones, we’ve chosen to focus this month’s newsletter on community history. Listed below are some teaching resources and reading recommendations that center family and community stories. Click on any of the links to learn more!
Last year, in 2023, California passed Assembly Concurrent Resolution No. 58, officially recognizing April as Arab American Heritage Month. This resolution recognizes California’s role in Arab American history as the state with the largest Arab American population - numbering upwards of 700,000 people. Dr.
The History-Social Science Project at the University of California, Berkeley seeks applications for a Director/Coordinator of Public Programs.
The UC Berkeley History-Social Science Project is part of the California History-Social Science Project, headquartered at the University of California, Davis, and one of dozens of discipline-based programs in the California Subject Matter Projects, administered by the University of California, Office of the President.
by Brianna Tafolla Rivière, edited by Vanessa Madrigal-Lauchland
This month, the California History-Social Science Project invited Brianna Tafolla Rivière to write a guest post about bringing indigenous history into your classroom. Brianna is a historian and PhD candidate specializing in Native American History at UC Davis. Her research focuses on the Red Power Movement and activism in Hollywood during the twentieth century. We are grateful that she agreed to share her expertise along with a few resources that have helped her in the classroom.
Latinx students make up nearly 55% of all K-12 students across California, and every year students are asking for more lessons that reflect their experiences. We educators and people of color hear the need to show students the diversity of people who lived and shaped our history–people that students relate to and we know how important it is for students to see themselves reflected in their educational experience.
Multiple studies have documented the benefits of picture books for young children. Researchers have determined that when adults read picture books, it promotes children’s “language comprehension and literacy,” according to Rutgers’ University’s Vanessa LoBue.
This month marks an historic moment in California - Governor Jerry Brown and the State Water Resources Control Board Issued the state's first-ever mandatory reduction in urban water use. This development comes sixteen months after the governor declared a drought state of emergency, in what is now the fourth consecutive year of drought conditions and the lowest ever recorded snowpack (at only 5% of average), and after Californians, as a whole, have made only modest voluntary reductions in water use. The new mandate calls for a 25% reduction in urban water use.
The United States and Cuba are moving toward repairing a strained relationship that has persisted for more than half a century. Barack Obama and Raúl Castro have announced their intention to restore diplomatic relations, indicated by their decisions in December 2014 to release political prisoners. In a lead-up to this historic decision representatives from both countries met under the encouragement and facilitation of Pope Francis, who, as the first Latin American pope, has an inherent interest in the region.
