Teachers Teaching Teachers
The History Project at UC Davis is a community of K-16 educators in the greater Sacramento area.
We are:
- committed to raising student achievement by teaching history in challenging and exciting ways, which expand content knowledge and develop a literate citizenry.
- dedicated to supporting and challenging one another in pursuit of excellence in history and social-science education.
“The History Project has been invaluable in providing teachers with useful, timely, and rigorous hands-on activities for Geography, World History and US History. Having the opportunity to hear and speak with university professors who are experts in their fields and actually having time to collaborate with educators throughout the region are certainly strengths of the program. Educators, take advantage of the History Project offerings; they will take your teaching to a much higher level, and you'll have fun in the process!”
Carrie Malenab
Vice Principal
Pleasant Grove High School
We are part of UCD's Department of History, one of seven California History-Social Science Projects, and part of the larger network of the discipline-specific sites known as the California Subject Matter Projects commissioned by the California State Legislature.
Welcome to our community!
“If you want to understand today, you have to search yesterday.” — Pearl S. Buck
HP Fellow Receives Geography Teaching Award
The History Project is proud to announce that long-time Project Fellow Barbara Boyd was recently honored as the recipient of the California Geographical Society’s K-12 Distinguished Teaching Award at their annual spring conference. The purpose of this award, established in 1974, is to “honor those teachers who are largely responsible for generating the love for geography” among K-12 students.John Aubert , Past President of the California Geographical Society and Chair of American River College’s Earth Sciences Department, spearheaded Barbara’s nomination.
Barbara teaches at Rosemont high School in the Sacramento City Unified School District. She has been involved as a learner and leader with the History Project for many years. During this time, she was a vital contributor in the HP’s geography programs; she helped develop and deliver geography training for the HP’s geography professional development series from 2004-2006. Her enthusiasm and commitment to geography have also led her to pursue opportunities for professional development abroad in Asia and Europe through the Korea Society and Atlantik-Brucke.
Barbara is well-respected by her colleagues and administrators for her collaborative and generous spirit, classroom innovation, and support of life-long learning for herself and her students. Rosemont Social-Science Department Chair Julieann Skvarla, declared "Barbara has single-handedly put geography on the curricular map of the Sacramento City Unified School District." Katie Durham, former Rosemont High School teacher noted that her love of learning and treatment of her classroom as a geography “laboratory” where key concepts in geography are combined with essential lifelong skills such as teamwork and literacy. As a result, “her 9th-grade students benefit tremendously…because she teaches them about their community and its place in the globe, and she lays a foundation for her students' success in high school and beyond.” Former teaching partner, Kenneth Durham explained how much he appreciated her as a collaborator during his first year teaching when he “absorbed everything Barbara could teach me about the teaching of geography,” noting “even though she is a veteran teacher, she never stops learning and is always rearranging her teaching based on new knowledge or self-reflection.” Rosemont Principal, Leise Martinez, appreciates the way Barbara uses technology to engage the students and help them see its relevance to their classes noting, “Whenever I want to demonstrate that a classroom does not have to be students sitting quietly in rows, I use Barbara's classroom. Kids are up moving around researching and reporting.”
Finally, in the words of Professor Aubert, Barbara is an “energetic and committed geography educator” working “tirelessly in service of geography education.” Please join our K-16 History Social Science community in celebrating Barbara’s contributions to the field and accomplishment as honoree of this well-deserved award.
