From the California History-Social Science Project website:

"Envisioning Freedom is the theme for this summer's institute which focuses on events in American History from the Revolution to the present. Teachers will work with university faculty and regional teacher-leaders to increase their content knowledge, design new lesson plans, and share lessons developed during the institute for group discussion and constructive feedback. The three major components of this institute will be content presentations and teaching strategy workshops by UC Davis and Solano CC historians, teacher presentations, and creative lesson development, all of which will be linked to 8th- and 11th-grade content standards."

This institute will examine documents that trace the diverse and complex roles played by women throughout the history of the United States. Participants will meet with women's history specialists at the Library of Congress and examine original historical materials from the Library's collections. Library staff will also guide participants in finding and using materials related to women's history on the Library of Congress website, as well as exploring different ways to integrate those materials into the classroom.

Participants in this program will learn to integrate field research activities into their classroom curricula using the Schoodic Education Adventure program. The two-day institute investigates opportunities to collect field data, apply it to classroom lessons across the curricula, and connect it to real world applications in America's national parks.

Participants will create schoolyard investigation kits to take back to their classrooms; be introduced to outdoor, field-based activities that can be reproduced in a number of settings; learn classroom-based activities relating to science, social studies, technology, math, language arts, small group communication, public speaking, art, health, and citizenship; use GPS units and computers to create digital maps of study sites; qualify for student scholarships and transportation assistance to take your students to the Schoodic Education Adventure program.

Workshop activities highlight studying forest community structure, marine biodiversity, geology, soil development, and New England history.

Participants in this program will learn to integrate field research activities into their classroom curricula using the Schoodic Education Adventure program. The two-day institute investigates opportunities to collect field data, apply it to classroom lessons across the curricula, and connect it to real world applications in America's national parks.

Participants will create schoolyard investigation kits to take back to their classrooms; be introduced to outdoor, field-based activities that can be reproduced in a number of settings; learn classroom-based activities relating to science, social studies, technology, math, language arts, small group communication, public speaking, art, health, and citizenship; use GPS units and computers to create digital maps of study sites; and qualify for student scholarships and transportation assistance to take their students to the Schoodic Education Adventure program.

Workshop activities highlight studying forest community structure, marine biodiversity, geology, soil development, and New England history.

This institute will help teachers take advantage of the instructional power of primary sources. Though many teachers are familiar with the importance of primary sources, they are not sure how to use them in the classroom, how to develop inquiry-based lessons, or how to help students use them in projects. In this workshop, Library of Congress specialists will introduce participants to the unique characteristics of primary sources, while helping explore some of the millions of digitized primary sources available on the Library's website. Participants will look at ways to introduce students to primary sources and how to incorporate them in inquiry-based classroom activities.

The seminar will explore the separation of powers as it applies to the allocation of responsibility between Congress and the president concerning national security and foreign policy powers. Presidents and legislators have been warring over the question since the earliest days of the republic. The nation's political experience suggests that there are sound arguments to be made on both sides. It also suggests that the issues are unlikely to be finally resolved anytime soon. As participants in this seminar shall see, the debate between President Bush and Congress concerning the war in Iraq is but a modern re-setting of an argument that prompted a spirited exchange on the war powers between James Madison and Alexander Hamilton in 1793. Indeed, it may be argued that there is very little to this debate that was not more or less fully anticipated by those two worthies four years after the Constitution was ratified. Through a series of focused historical readings, the seminar will begin by examining the foundations of the Framers' thought and some of the controversies that exhibit the founding principles at work during the early days of the Republic. Participants will go on from there to examine selected executive-congressional debates as they arose during later military conflicts, especially the Civil War, World War II, the Vietnam War, and the current conflict in the Mideast. The seminar will meet formally for three 90-minute sessions on four days of each week. Each of these sessions will be devoted to a particular set of readings and each of the participants will have a one-on-one session with Professor Uhlmann to discuss the best ways in which the lessons of the seminar might be converted to his or her particular classroom environment. Because the seminar takes place in Washington and devotes a great deal of time to the Founders' thoughts, it would be remiss if it did not take advantage of the knowledge of Pamela Scott, a noted Washington architectural historian, who will share ways in which the art and architecture of Washington reflects the principles of the American regime. The greater part of one day during each week, she will lead specially arranged tours, including Mount Vernon.

This workshop provides a varied program of lectures, demonstrations, analysis of documents, independent research, and group work that introduces teachers to the holdings and organization of the National Archives. Participants will learn how to do research in historical records, create classroom material from records, and present documents in ways that sharpen students' skills and enthusiasm for history, social studies, and the humanities. Each participant selects and prepares to research a specific topic, searches the topic in the records of the National Archives, and develops a teaching unit that can be presented in his or her own classroom.

This institute is five days long, with follow-ups in the fall and spring semesters. It focuses on improving student learning through reading, writing, and thinking in history-social science. In addition to helping teachers with strategies for history reading and writing, this institute will strengthen and assist teachers with language arts instruction. This institute is also instrumental in deepening teachers' content knowledge as UC Berkeley professors in both world and American history collaborate with teachers in lesson development.