Together, the Teachers Institute of Philadelphia (TIP), Penn Press, and Penn GSE are helping boost K–12 teachers’ knowledge of regional history and ecology in preparation for the 250th anniversary of our nation's founding. The USA 250 Showcase will introduce a series of teacher workshops being offered this fall, led by authors of Penn Press’s Encyclopedia of Greater Philadelphia. In the workshops, teachers will write lesson plans that make use of the Encyclopedia, a copy of which will be provided free of charge to each workshop participant. Penn GSE will provide pedagogical support for the program by offering lesson-writing sessions as part of each workshop.
At the showcase, the audience will hear from each workshop leader about their topic. Attendees of will also get a preview of the Encyclopedia from Penn Press, which will be a resource to Penn students and faculty, to the public, as well as to K–12 teachers. To familiarize the audience with TIP, past participants and their students will present work done in previous TIP programs, which have been offered free to full-time teachers in the School District of Philadelphia since 2006.
The USA 250 Workshops are as follows:
- The Schuylkill River, led by Howard Gillette, Rutgers University
- Capital of Black America, led by Charlene Mires, Rutgers University, and Andrew Diemer, Temple University
- Industry and Pollution: An Environmental History of Greater Philadelphia, led by Stephen Nepa, Pennsylvania State University–Abington
- Recent Immigration and Migrant Communities in Philadelphia, led by Domenic Vitiello, University of Pennsylvania