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Arizona
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About the Arizona Council for the Social Studies

ACSS is a non-profit organization dedicated to promoting quality instruction for students and support for Social Studies educators. We are part of the network of more than 110 affiliated state, local, and regional councils and associated groups with the National Council for the Social Studies. Our membership represents K-12 classroom teachers, college and university faculty members, curriculum designers and specialists, social studies supervisors, and leaders in the various disciplines that constitute the social studies.

Join ACSS Today

Take advantage of discounted ACSS Membership for you School's entire Social Studies Department, or join today as an individual or student member! Membership includes discounted registration at the ACSS Conference in October!

ACSS Individual Annual Membership -- $20

ACSS Student Annual Membership -- $10
(Must be a full time student and submit copy of Student ID or class schedule)

ACSS School Department Annual Membership -- $100
(Full ACSS Membership for an unlimited number of teachers in your school's Social Studies Department)

Download Membership Brochure (pdf)

2012 ACSS Fall Conference Grand Canyon University
Saturday, October 27th

Set the date aside for this fall . . .

Make plans now to attend the 2012 Conference!

Register and Pay online via Paypal

Select Member or Student Discount

TEACHERS' WORKSHOP
February 2, 2012

Bill of Rights Institute

Please join us for a FREE ond-day professional development seminar on February 2, 2012. The program will be held in Phoenix/Mesa area, and will explore the American experiment in religious liberty. This seminar is presented by the Bill of Rights Institute, thanks to the generous support of the George Washington Institute for Religious Freedom.

Download information flyer here!

http://www.BillofRightsInstitute.org/UpcomingSeminars

All registrations must be received online. For questions, contact Marianne Scott at events@BillofRightsInstitute.org or at 703-894-1776, ext 20.

Arizona Society of Economics Teachers

ASET Conference 2012

Saturday, February 4, 2012 Mesa Community College

Registration Now Open - Click HERE
Arizona Council on Economic Education

Submit a Proposal for the 2012 NCSS Annual Conference

The 2012 National Council for the Social Studies Annual Conference in Seattle, Washington

Opening Windows to the World - 92nd Annual Conference

The 2012 NCSS Annual Conference will be in Seattle this December. For more details, click here...

The 92nd NCSS Annual Conference will be held in the exciting city of Seattle, Washington. Who we teach, what we teach and how we teach are the bedrock issues of social studies education. The 2012 NCSS Annual Conference will provide educators an opportunity for thoughtful discussion and collegial exchange devoted to these issues of diversity, and a forum to share, interact, learn, and develop ideas, skills, and programs that increase their own successes and those of their students.

With its spectacular setting on Puget Sound, vibrant historical legacy, ever-changing cultural diversity and high tech aura, Seattle opens windows to a myriad of worlds. We invite you to submit a proposal for presenting at the 2012 NCSS Annual Conference. The 2012 conference will draw attendees from both sides of the U.S. - Canadian border, as well as other countries.

The deadline for submitting proposals is February 20, 2012. Visit www.socialstudies.org/conference/proposals

Educators Conference on the Holocaust

20th Annual Conference - Download Flyer

Monday, March 5, 2012 Scottsdale, AZ

at the Ina Levine Jewish Community Campus
12701 N. Scottsdale Road
480.634.8050

ACSS List of 100 Places to Visit in Arizona
Preparing for Arizona's 100th Birthday in February 2012

Click here to download the document

Visit Scottsdale's Fabulous
Musical Instrument Museum
Information Here...

The Arizona Geographic Alliance
a whole new world of ideas and tools...

Felines of the Borderlands

April 13 - 15, 2012 San Bernardino National Wildlife Refuge near Douglas, AZ

Check-in begins Friday at 5:30 pm with an evening program beginning at 7:00 pm. Wrap up will take place on Sunday around 11:00 am.

Wild cats occupy a special place in many people's hearts. Some people love them, some despise them. Some people revere them, while others fear them. Arizona is fortunate to be home to at least four species of wild cats - mountain lions, bobcats, and recently newsworthy ocelots and jaguars. Alternative values and viewpoints, an international border, and a paucity of natural history information for some wild cats make management decisions complicated. Join educators from across Arizona in this unique workshop that will allow you to explore these issues in depth. During this weekend workshop, you will speak with local experts dealing with wildlife along the border and receive valuable information and resources to take back to your classroom.

Follow this link to download the registration form and more information: Felines of the Borderlands

Tired of the same old in-service?

For a limited time, the Arizona Council for the Social Studies is offering NO-COST in-service training for schools and districts. These trainings for elementary, middle school, and high schools feature interactive social studies lessons and a showcase of social studies resources available to Arizona teachers from ACSS affiliates such as the Arizona Historical Society, Arizona Geographic Alliance, Arizona Humanities Council, Arizona Council on Economic Education, Arizona Foundation for Legal Services & Education, Arizona Game & Fish, and more! Contact Megan Gately at MGately@azhs.gov to schedule an in-service.

Phoenix Hall of Flame Museum
The world's largest museum of fire fighting history. For more information call the Museum at (602)275-3473 or go to http://www.hallofflame.org to visit online.

Arizona Humanities Council

Featured Programs for the Arizona Centennial
In honor of Arizona's 100th birthday, AHC's Speakers Bureau is offering presentations around the theme of Arizona's Centennial.

Speakers in the Schools - Dr. Jay Craváth

Native American Stories in Music and Culture
Heroes Among Us: Distinguished Native Americans
The Music and History of Arizona's Pioneers
Miners, Cowboys and Washerwomen: the Work Songs of Arizona
The Journeys of Kokopelli

Please refer to the Road Scholars and History Alive! catalog for more detailed information on each of these exciting programs. Download information on Jay Craváth's presentations here.

If you need contact information for the speaker, please contact Celina Chiarello by calling 602-257-0335 X23 or e-mailing cchiarello@azhumanities.org.

World Memory Project News

The U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum and Ancestry.com are recruiting the public to help build the world's largest online database of information on victims of the Holocaust. The World Memory Project announced Tuesday aims to make the museum's vast archive of documents easily searchable for free online. The museum has 170 million documents with information on more than 17 million people targeted by the Nazis. Many people search the archives in person to learn what happened to family members separated during the Holocaust. The project will dramatically expand access to those records. Ancestry will donate its proprietary software and manage the project's painstaking work of digitizing millions of records. Museum visitors can help index records to make them searchable. Already, about 50,000 records have been indexed.
http://www.worldmemoryproject.org/

Outstanding Arizona Educators & Students Honored: (Click here to view)

Robert J. Stahl Student Teacher Scholarship Award
Gilder-Lehrman History Teacher of the Year Awards
We the People:The Citizen and the Constitution State Competition Results
James Madison Foundation Fellows

The ACSS Arizona State Academic Standards Search Tool
Social studies educators can search the Arizona Social Studies Standard to help correlate standards and classroom instruction to the Arizona State Standards. The Social Studies Standard Articulated by Grade Level was adopted by the Board of Education on September 26, 2005 and is easily accessed on the Arizona Department of Education (ADE) website. Give it a try below...

NEW ARIZONA CENTENNIAL RESOURCES AVAILABLE AT ADE

Arizona's centennial projects and events?

Celebrate the Arizona Centennial with a new lesson (or two) -
To celebrate the Arizona Centennial, the Arizona Geographic Alliance has created a list of lessons for Teaching Arizona History with a Geographical Perspective and posted this list of over 50 K-12 lessons on their website. An excerpt of It’s Where??? A Look at the Location of our First Arizona Territorial Capital and Why it was Located There! By Patty Sepp is available here for download as a pdf. Click to download. To see the entire lesson, including maps, student worksheets and assessments go to the Arizona Geographic Alliance website, http://alliance.la.asu.edu/azga/ (or Google Arizona Geographic Alliance), select the Legacy Project button on the right hand side of the page and click it to open the list with links to the lessons. This list is in alphabetical order by the name of the lesson and shows suggested grade levels and the Arizona State Geography Concepts covered by the lesson as well as other standards content the lesson meets. Just click on the links to get the lessons. Happy 100th birthday Arizona!

By the way, do you happen to know when Arizona will celebrate its 100th Birthday as a state? Find out here - CLICK!

Arizona Centennial Commission - Celebrating 100 Years!

The Reference Library Database for Social Studies and Science Trade books is now available through IDEAL. A link to the Database is available on the Social Studies Resource Page.

NEW SOCIAL STUDIES RESOURCES HAVE BEEN RECENTLY ADDED TO IDEAL!

Over fifty-five K-12 lessons/resources are new to the Learning Resource Manager. To access the new resources, log into IDEAL, go to Curriculum Resources, then go to the Learning Resource Manager.

January 2012
(View Past ACSS Websites of the Month)

The Emancipation Proclamation!

On January 1, 1863, in the middle of the Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation. Although it was limited in its scope, it is still a signature event in American history. As you return to school and prepare for Black History Month, there is no better time to introduce students to this important document and allow them to reflect on the impact that it had at the time and still has today. This link will provide you with an electronic version of the actual document as well as transcripts and other related materials. It is a great opportunity to bring primary source documents into your class.

If you are looking for lesson ideas to help you, consider "Freedom's First Steps" from the National Endowment for the Humanites.

2012 ACSS Fall Conference Grand Canyon University Saturday, October 27th

Set the date aside for this fall . . . Make plans now to attend the 2012 Conference!