NEH Announces Grants to 10 Schools for High-Tech Curriculum Projects

Ten schools around the nation have been awarded National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) grants totaling $1.4 million to integrate digital technologies into their humanities curricula, NEH Chairman William R. Ferris announced today. The grants are part of NEH's Schools for a New Millennium initiative, which helps K-12 schools develop creative new ways of teaching history, literature and languages using the Internet and CD-ROMs.

"These 10 innovative projects include incorporating local history to teach the civil rights movement in Memphis, creating an electronic archive about Kansas's pioneer and underground railroad heritage, and integrating the immigrant experience, Hispanic culture and John Steinbeck's novels into a Fresno, Calif., curriculum. Each project will have a nationwide impact because teachers everywhere will be able to access the important new classroom materials being developed," NEH Chairman Ferris said. "Through our Schools for a New Millennium program, NEH is helping teachers use the computer in ways that get students excited about learning while boosting their achievement at the same time."

The 10 schools or jurisdictions receiving NEH Schools for a New Millennium grants are:

• Kake, Alaska's Kake Elementary School and Kake High School ($95,000)--study of Tlingit language and culture
• Northern Arizona's Seba Dakai School ($105,000)--study of Navajo history and culture
• Fresno, California's Bullard High School ($185,000)--incorporation of the immigrant experience, John Steinbeck's novels, and Hispanic studies into the curriculum
• Los Angeles, California's Portola Middle School ($120,000)--strengthening of the world history curriculum
• Lawrence, Kansas's West Junior High School ($145,000)--teaching of Kansas history, including the pioneer and underground railroad heritage
• Hyattsville, Maryland's Northwestern High School ($155,000)--study of the ideas and history of social justice
• Deerfield, Massachusetts's Frontier Regional High School ($180,000)--enrichment of the U.S. history curriculum
• Beaufort, South Carolina's Humanities School of Beaufort ($105,000)--teaching of the history and culture of South Carolina's Low Country
• Memphis, Tennessee's Booker T. Washington High School ($165,000)--teaching of the history of the civil rights movement in Memphis
• Houston, Texas's Hogg Middle School ($180,000)--study of local and regional history

NEH grants are awarded on a competitive basis. Throughout the year, humanities experts outside of the Endowment assess all applications and judge the quality and significance of each proposed project.