Rockingham Early College educator participates in The Rural Experience in America Project

The National Council for History Education (NCHE) recently announced that Valencia Abbott participated in the 2024 Rural Experience in America, Community Civics through Historical Inquiry project funded by a grant from the Library of Congress Teaching with Primary Sources program.

Since 2006, Congress has appropriated funds to the Teaching with Primary Sources (TPS) program to establish and fund a consortium of organizations working to incorporate "the digital collections of the Library of Congress into educational curricula."

Each year, members of the TPS Consortium support tens of thousands of learners to build knowledge, engagement and critical thinking skills with items from the Library's collections.

Valencia was selected from a nationwide applicant pool to take part in this professional learning and work alongside historians to design works of public value to help her students examine the following questions:

• What is rural America?

• How have rural places shaped the history of the nation?

• Whose stories are told?

• How has US rural and agricultural history shaped my community?

Teachers began the work for this project in December of 2023 and successfully completed two asynchronous, online learning courses entitled, "Teaching with Primary Sources Basics Course" sponsored by the Library of Congress and "Teaching Students to Ask Their Own Primary Source Questions" sponsored by the Right Question Institute. Both courses focused on using primary sources through the Library of Congress collections.

The second phase of this project involved the teachers participating in three, synchronous, online professional learning opportunities in which they learned from a historian, educational specialist, and master teacher first-hand to examine change and development in rural America.

The third phase of this project took place July 24 – 26, 2024. Teachers traveled to Washington, D.C. with a community partner from their hometown to work alongside a public historian to create a public history project to be implemented with their students during this school year. Valencia's community partner is Blaine Henderson, Public Services Librarian, Rockingham Community College, and her project is entitled NAACP Legal Defense Fund and the Landmark Supreme Court Case of Griggs vs. Duke Power. Participating teachers received a stipend to help cover their travel expenses and implement their public history project.

Founded in 1990, the National Council for History Education has worked to promote excellence in K-12 and college-level history education. This nonprofit organization supports the teaching, learning, and appreciation of diverse histories through advocacy, sponsoring workshops that connect teachers and professors, and by producing resources for classroom use. Learn more at www.ncheteach.org .

The Library of Congress is the world's largest library, offering access to the creative record of the United States — and extensive materials from around the world — both on-site and online. It is the main research arm of the U.S. Congress and the home of the U.S. Copyright Office. Explore collections, reference services and other programs and plan a visit at loc.gov ; access the official site for U.S. federal legislative information at congress.gov ; and register creative works of authorship at copyright.gov .

Please direct any further inquiries or follow up questions to our Public Information officer Sean Gladieux at or 336-627-2602.