Participants in this course will examine African American history in the contexts of United States, North Carolina, and world history. They will begin by connecting the experiences of African Americans in early U.S. history to the histories and cultures of the African communities of their ancestors and will follow those cultural connections between Africa and the United States throughout the course.

Course topics include African Americans in the colonies and the early Republic, the Middle Passage, American slavery and the experiences of free African Americans in the antebellum period, the abolition movement, the Civil War and Reconstruction, Jim Crow, the Great Migration, the Harlem Renaissance, and the experiences of African Americans during World War I, the Great Depression, and World War II. Throughout the course, participants will discuss African American activism through churches, political organizations, and communities and discover African American culture through art, music, and other cultural forms.

Participants in this online course will discover the wealth of web-based primary research and active learning resources available to social studies teachers of all grade levels. They will explore an array of primary and secondary resources including collections of original documents, vast reservoirs of secondary historical information, and online resources designed to support social studies teachers in curriculum development. They will consider effective research strategies and engage in critical analysis of web resources. In addition, they will learn to develop a personal collection of web-based resources for curricular use, as well as create preliminary plans to enhance a curriculum unit.

Today a common beverage worldwide, tea was once a precious imported commodity. This presentation will introduce the geographic and botanical origins of tea, the role of trade in bringing tea from China to Western consumers, the social and cultural role of tea in 18th-century New England, and the period equipment and furnishings commonly used to prepare and serve tea in a place such as Deerfield, Massachusetts. The day includes a presentation, a tour of the new exhibition "Stimulating Beverages: Tea, Coffee, and Chocolate Wares at Historic Deerfield," a house tour, and a serving of tea.

This workshop will be structured to enhance teacher knowledge of Abraham Lincoln's significance in American history and will include pedagogical skills. It will include morning lectures by Thomas Krannawitter, of Hillsdale College and author of Vindicating Lincoln, and afternoon sessions, by John Rodahl of the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, devoted to strategies for lesson planning, classroom activities, and student engagement.

What are the goals of hands on learning? How do museum educators come up with activity ideas? How do they test ideas to make sure things work, and what happens when something fails?

Visitors will see prototypes and finished "products" of activities used successfully in Spark!Lab, and then will have the opportunity to prototype and give feedback on a new activity under development.

This month's prototyping activity is on electrical history. This is being developed to allow visitors to explore electrical science via the works of inventor and electrical engineer Nikola Tesla (1856–1943). Tesla is best known for his many revolutionary contributions in the field of electricity and magnetism in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Tesla's patents and theoretical work formed the basis of many modern technologies now taken for granted, including fluorescent and neon lighting, automation, radio-controlled toys and guided missiles, and wireless transmissions that earned him the name "father of radio."