What are we – English teachers? It’s a common complaint in many social studies departments. Teachers wonder how they can possibly teach the literacy skills expected of them in the Common Core while also having to teach massive amount of content in most social studies curricula. And as if this were not challenging enough, now many schools are pushing STEM requirements within the humanities. What are we – Science teachers?
The IEEE REACH program offers an excellent solution to both of these challenges and it does so by incorporating the C3 Teachers Inquiry Design Model (IDM). REACH (Raising Engineering Awareness through the Conduit of History) combines historical document analysis with reading and writing practice into fully developed, professionally prepared C3 Inquiry Units that focus on technology and engineering across time and space. IEEE REACH units provide teachers and students with educational resources that explore the relationship between technology and engineering history and the complex relationships they have with society, politics, economics, and culture. REACH was created by the IEEE History Center, a unit of IEEE. IEEE is the world’s largest technical professional organization dedicated to advancing technology for the benefit of humanity. The IEEE History Center’s mission is to preserve, research, and promote the history of information and electrical technologies.
So why use the materials developed by REACH? Lots of reasons! Maybe you want your students to explore the interplay between history and technology, but you don’t have an academic background in engineering. Or, maybe you want to incorporate examples of innovation into your daily curriculum without going back to school, REACH is the answer. Maybe you love using the C3 IDM but you just don’t have time to write complete Inquiry Units for every part of your curriculum. Again, REACH can help. Or maybe you just want professionally chosen primary and secondary sources to support your current instruction. REACH can give you that too!
REACH provides you with a collection of effective, C3 IDM units, inclusive of featured sources and primary source documents, and it’s all available for free! Here’s what you get when you access the REACH online resources:
Fully Developed Inquiry Units
Teachers can simply download PDF versions of complete C3 Inquiry Units. The REACH website includes topics from Ancient Greek Triremes and their links to Democracy to Modern Unmanned Aerial Vehicles and their roots in medieval warfare. These complete units are organized by topic, time period, geographic region, and AP World History Thematic Learning Objectives, and they include everything you need to implement them in your classroom. In addition to the Inquiry Units, teachers are also provided background information on the history of the technology being considered.
Primary Sources
If you like the IEEE REACH materials but you don’t have the time to utilize the whole unit, maybe you would benefit from simply downloading individual documents. Like the Inquiry Units, REACH Primary Sources are searchable by topic, time period, geographic region, and AP World History Thematic Learning Objectives.
Multimedia Sources
Each REACH Inquiry Unit includes original digital video content produced specifically to support and augment the research process within that particular unit. These multimedia sources are independently searchable by topic, time period, geographic region, and AP World History Thematic Learning Objectives; and they can be downloaded and used in your classroom to support your own unit objectives. They may also be for used as a flipped classroom application.
Hands-on Activities
REACH Hands-on Activities are designed to actively engage students in the topic. They bring the excitement of a science lab into the history classroom, and, of course, they are also searchable by topic, time period, geographic region, and AP World History Thematic Learning Objectives.
Whether you’re a new teacher in search of high quality C3 IDM resources ready for immediate use in your classroom, an experienced teacher looking for ways to incorporate STEM concepts into your history curriculum, or just one of the many conscientious history professionals always trying to further enhance and enliven your instruction; IEEE REACH might just be the object of your quest.
Visit the website to explore all the free resources – http://reach.ieee.org/
Tony Maccarella, or as students past and present call him “Mr. Mac,” has been teaching social studies since 1982. He is currently teaching AP World History and AP Macroeconomics at Saddle River Day School, in Saddle River, NJ. Prior to this, he taught AP European History at Parsippany Hills High School, in Parsippany, NJ for over 10 years. Mr. Mac has taught AP U.S. History, Comparative Governments, Anthropology, Psychology, Microeconomics, and Military History. In addition to teaching, Tony has worked for the past two years as Curriculum Consultant for the IEEE Reach Team; and since 2002, Tony has served as a Reader and Table Leader for the AP European History exam for ETS. Tony is an avid traveler. He has cycled across the United States, motorcycled to Sturgis and back, studied in China, and traveled throughout Italy with his wife, family, and students from seven different European History classes.