From the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History:

"Among all bilateral relations in today's world, the relationship between the United States and the People’s Republic of China is arguably the most important and dynamic.

The development of U.S.-China relations is tumultuous. Early in the twentieth century, America's 'Open Door' policy, allegedly designed to help prevent China from being divided up by foreign powers, was followed by a nationwide anti-American boycott movement in China. In the Second World War, China and the United States were allies. Yet only four years after the war's end, they entered a total confrontation that would last more than two decades. During the Cold War, both of the only two major 'hot wars' that America was involved occurred in East Asia—first in Korea and then in Vietnam—mainly for containing Communist China's 'expansionist ambitions.' When U.S.-China relations reached the low ebb, a rapprochement between Beijing and Washington happened in the early 1970s, changing the two countries from bitter enemies to quasi 'strategic partners' while, at the same time, transforming the orientation and essence of the global Cold War. Since the end of the Cold War, the 'U.S.-China partnership' has encountered serious challenges as many in America have difficulty in comprehending the implications of China's continuous rise as a prominent world power.

This course begins with reviewing the encounters between the U.S. and China in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. It explores the confrontation and cooperation between the two countries during the Cold War by focusing on such key cases as the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the Taiwan Question, and the Chinese-American Rapprochement. It concludes with identifying the opportunities and challenges facing the U.S. and China in the twenty-first century. The basic aim of the course is to help the participants develop a better understanding of how nations with different values, cultural-historical backgrounds, political institutions, and levels of economic development may coexist in today's world."

From the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History:

"The Cold War dominated the second half of the twentieth century, but until recently we had only an imperfect sense of what it was all about. Historians wrote about it, of necessity, from within the event they were seeking to describe, so that there was no way to know its outcome. And because only a few Western countries had begun to open their archives, these accounts could only reflect one side of the story. Cold War history, hence, was not normal history: it was both asymmetrical and incomplete.

The end of the Cold War and the subsequent partial opening of Soviet, Eastern European, and Chinese archives have revolutionized the field. Everything we thought we knew is suddenly up for reconsideration, whether because of the new documents available to us, or as a consequence of knowing how it all came out. Even as this happens, though, the memories of those who lived through the Cold War are rapidly fading, and a new generation of students has no memory of it at all.

This seminar will seek to integrate the latest scholarly research on Cold War history and the ways in which that subject is presented in the classroom. We shall use a variety of means: lectures, books, documents, video documentaries, and the resources of the world-wide web. There will also be ample opportunity, we hope, for you to learn from one another, and for us to learn from you. It will be, in short, a week of total immersion in the lengthy, occasionally dangerous, and (almost) always intriguing history of the Cold War, filled with debate and new information."

From the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History:

"This seminar will explore a controversial era shrouded in myths and memories. Among the topics it will examine are the presidencies of John Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, and Richard Nixon; the civil rights movement; the Vietnam War; the New Left; the counterculture; the women's movement; the gay movement; the conservative movement; the international dimension of youth protest; and the legacies of the 1960s. The aim of the seminar is to provide a balanced history of a turbulent time that continues to influence American politics, society, and culture.

From the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History:

"The financial crisis and the ensuing economic recession of 2007-09 serve to remind us that such crises and downturns have been recurring events in American history. They have occurred on average once every fifteen to twenty years since 1789. In this seminar we will study the causes of some major financial crises—those of 1792, 1837-39, 1873, 1893-95, 1907, 1929-33, 1989-90, and 2007-09—and will explore the social, political, and economic consequences of the crises. We will discuss the typical pattern of most of the crises, differences among them, and issues such as whether legislative and regulatory responses to a crisis make subsequent crises more or less likely. Participants will visit the Museum of American Finance on Wall Street to gain a better understanding of the complexities of our financial system, how it developed over two centuries, and how periodically it has crashed on the rocks of excessive risk taking and speculation."

From Indiana University's website:

"Our NEH summer institute will enhance your teaching curriculum with respect to modern American social movements in a number of ways. Most fundamentally, the institute will help you understand the pivotal role that social movements have played in changing public policy in the United States over the last century. Moreover, the institute will acquaint you with the latest scholarship on these three social movements—labor, civil rights, and feminism—which you are unlikely to have encountered in your teacher training. Recent historical scholarship reveals at least three general ways to enhance these topics for your secondary school students. First, historians now emphasize the diversity and complexity of each of these movements. In each case, a variety of sometimes conflicting organizations, perspectives, and leaders made up each movement. And yet teaching tends to focus only on the dominant current within each movement. Second, the interconnections between these three movements have received renewed attention. Historians are finding more and more ways in which these movements cross-fertilized each other, but the connections are often missed by teachers. For instance, recent scholarship on Betty Friedan, the central founder of the National Organization for Women has found that her work for CIO unions like the United Electrical Workers during the 1940s was a formative experience for the development of her feminist ideas. Third, social movement scholarship has taken note of the extent to which each of these movements faced organized resistance. It is easy for young people today to forget that as reasonable as Martin Luther King, Jr. may seem to us today, in his own day he was viewed as a dangerous agitator."

From the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History:

"This seminar explores the rise of Jim Crow in the United States and tracks it forward to its modern post-civil rights manifestations. Seminar participants will work with a range of primary sources to interpret the shifting social, economic, political, psychological, and cultural trauma associated with this set of racial practices. Close attention will be paid to the effects of Jim Crow on both sides of the color line."

From a NASA Digital Learning Network mailing:

"During the week of November 16th-20th, students in grades K-8th are invited to re-discover the remarkable accomplishment of the Apollo 11 Moon landing.

Forty years have passed since this momentous event and to celebrate, NASA's Digital Learning Network (DLN) will deliver a daily videoconference that will explore a single NASA center's contribution to Apollo 11. These programs will also feature an in-studio NASA employee who had a special connection with Apollo 11. Student participation and interaction with the DLN host and NASA expert is assured!

Would you like to challenge your students to exercise their bodies and minds? The DLN has designed a fun activity that incorporates fitness and math! Walk to the Moon encourages students to count their steps around their homes and schools in order to reach a goal of 250,000 steps. Each step will be equal to one mile. With approximately 250,000 miles between the Earth and the Moon, your students will "walk" to the moon! Students may chart their progress individually or in groups - the choice is yours. Either way, the DLN would like to hear about your class' journey! Please email your results to jsc-dislearn@mail.nasa.gov, and you may hear your students' stories LIVE during the DLN's week-long special event in November!

Please note there will be a global flair to this weeklong event as students from various nations around the world will be selected to join and participate!
Descriptions of each event are as follows:
Note: All programs are scheduled to begin at 12:00 CST and end at 1:00 CST

Langley Research Center- Nov. 16
Learn how a young engineer convinced his boss that landing on the Moon would only be possible if something called Lunar Orbit Rendezvous was used as the passageway to the Moon.

Marshall Spaceflight Center - Nov. 17
Learn how a rocket taller than the Statue of Liberty was constructed for peaceful space exploration and why its presence tipped the scale of the space race in the America's favor.

Kennedy Space Center- Nov. 18
Discover America's spaceport, the site where the Apollo 11 astronauts made their final preparations before counting down to the launch of the fastest vehicle human beings have ever ridden in- the Saturn V rocket.

Johnson Space Center- Nov. 19
Learn more about the home of the astronaut corps and take a peek inside the Mission Control Center, where a room called the "FCR 2" was the setting for communicating with Neil, Buzz, and Michael as they zoomed towards the Moon.

Ames Research Center- Nov. 20
Traveling to the Moon once again is expected to take place in the next decade. Learn how this will take place through a new NASA program called Constellation.

Registration
To participate in this program, your school must have videoconferencing capabilities. For more information on technical requirements go to: http://dln.nasa.gov/dln/content/techinfo/

If you would like to be placed on the "we're interested" list for this free program, please reply to jsc-dislearn@mail.nasa.gov. Please respond no later than close of business, October 14. We will contact you soon as a possible participant. We hope you will be able to join us!

The subject line must be: Apollo 11 40th Anniversary
Please send the following information:
Your name:
Your work email:
Your work telephone number:
Your school's name:
Your school's city:
Your school's state:
Your school's technical point of contact:
Technical POC's work telephone:
Technical POC's work email:
Student grade levels:
Anticipated number of participating students:
Date/time of preferred participation:

Thank you,
NASA Digital Learning Network
jsc-dislearn@mail.nasa.gov"

From a Kansas Cosmosphere and Space Center flyer:

"This free event will feature food, adult beverages, IMAX Movies, liquid oxygen ice cream and more. We'll have great prizes for drawings all night long."

For more on the Cosmosphere, try the NHEC's Museums and Historic Sites listing.

From the TeachingAmericanHistory.org:

"This seminar will examine the challenge Ronald Reagan posed to the modern liberal tradition in America, especially in its Progressive, New Deal, and Great Society forms. The sources and circumstances of Reagan's political philosophy will be surveyed, along with an assessment of where he succeeded and failed to attain his objectives, and areas where a full verdict is more difficult to reach. The unity of Reagan's domestic and foreign policy will be explained and analyzed.

The morning session will cover Reagan's domestic policy, especially his four-part economic policy, but also his initiatives in legal and constitutional reform, family policy, and his attempts to revitalize federalism.

The afternoon session will survey the three phases of Reagan's foreign policy: the first-term arms buildup and tough diplomacy, followed by a transitional period while Soviet leadership turned over, and culminating in four dramatic summit meetings with Mikhail Gorbachev that set the stage for the surprising and rapid end of the Cold War. Foreign policy conflicts on the periphery, especially in Central America and the Middle East, will be surveyed, culminating in the Iran-Contra disaster of Reagan's second term. The changing assessment and legacy of Reagan since his presidency will be surveyed, with an eye especially to the question of what aspects of Reaganism remain salient today, and which have been superseded by post-Cold War circumstances. "