Grantee: Mississippi Bend Area Education Agency, Bettendorf, Iowa
Project Name: The Future of Our Past: Mississippi Bend AEA Collaborative
Project Director: Jan Yoder (563) 344-6315
Funding: $708,370
Number of Teachers Served: 70
Number of School Districts Served: 22
Number of Students Served: 55,000

The Future of Our Past is a collaborative project that will provide professional development services to 70 secondary American history and social studies teachers serving 22 school districts in Eastern Iowa. The project will be offered by a partnership of the Mississippi Bend area Education Agency, the Davenport Putnam Museum of History and natural Science, Augustana College, and the international organization Facing History and Ourselves. One product of the project will be a professional network and mentoring system for all American history teachers in the AEA area. The program includes 9 days of workshops, 3 weeks of summer institutes and immersion programs, training in mentoring and peer-coaching, 19 interactive videoconferencing sessions, and site visits and technical support. The themes of the content are: "What is History: Being Historically Minded," Building a Community: Ordinary People in American History," and "Forging a Nation: Becoming American." Workshops will focus on the region's civil war history through an examination of the role of the Mississippi River.