Heartland Passage: Teaching the Erie Canal in American History

FAIN: EZ-50207-07

City Lore: NY Center for Urban Folk Culture (New York, NY 10003-9345)
Marci Reaven (Project Director: September 2006 to December 2008)

A four-day workshop for fifty teachers in grades 4-8 on the history of the Erie Canal from its groundbreaking in 1817 to the present day.

"Heartland Passage: Teaching the Erie Canal in American History" is a project of City Lore, in collaboration with the Gotham Center for New York City History at the CUNY Graduate Center, founded by Pulitzer-prize winning author Mike Wallace. We request funding for a faculty humanities workshop at City University of New York (CUNY) in July 2007 for fifty grade 4-8 teachers. We propose to develop, document, evaluate, and disseminate a program that will (a) instruct and engage New York teachers on the impact of a magnificent nineteenth-century construction project which established New York as a world city and port, spurred the growth of other cities along its route, and connected the eastern United States to the Midwest; (b) provide teachers with a wealth of teaching strategies and resource materials (books, curriculum materials, primary documents, and audio/visual materials) to enhance their teaching; and (c) document and disseminate successful units on the history of the canal.