Equity in History Summer Institute for Teachers (Charles County)

On August 2 at Piscataway Park in Prince George's County the Southern Maryland Equity in History Coalition held its third Summer Institute for Teachers on accessing the Diverse History of Southern Maryland website equityinhistory.org 

The morning was to highlight resources in the Charles County area of Southern Maryland.

Based on her experiences working in the area Dr. Julia King, professor of Anthropology at St. Mary’s College of Maryland, talked about the history of Black and Indigenous People in Southern Maryland and more specifically in Charles County.  Despite the handicap of not being able to use her PowerPoint presentation (no power on site until the end of her talk), Dr. King's talk was interesting and informative.

Next there was a condensed tour of the site that the Accokeek Foundation’s Educational Staff gives to school groups (4th-9th grades).  The tour started with talking about the Piscataway tie to the land and included demonstrations relating to the environment.

After the tour was a Mini-Expo of ten Cultural Organizations, mostly in Charles County.  CCASM had a table at the Mini-Expo.  We handed out Maryland Archaeology Month booklets "African Diaspora Archeology: A Collaboration with Descendants".  We also had an "activity" related to identifying Native American artifacts and contrasting that with the different types of historic ceramics.  We pointed out that with historic ceramics you need to know where the ceramic were found and research who might have lived there.

CCASM Table

The afternoon was dedicated to a hands-on session for using the website and learning how to integrate its resources into their lesson plans.  Teachers also learned how to get MSDE credit for this Institute.  This was the main purpose of the Institute.

 Thanks to Mary and Carol for representing CCASM at the Mini-Expo.