Creating Modern America will provide professional development for American history teachers in middle and high schools in Brevard County. Created by the public school system in partnership with the National Council for History Education and the Florida Humanities Council, this collaborative program will increase educators' knowledge of traditional American history and expand the skills and strategies they have available to enhance student interest and academic performance. Annual program activities include a summer colloquium and institute, an academic-year distance learning course, and two support workshops. Topics change annually, but the ongoing emphasis will be the use of primary documents and exploration of local resources. The first grant year will focus on the American Revolution and the Constitution. The focus of Year 2 will be Slavery in America. The Gilded Age and the Reform Era will be explored in Year 3.

This project engages American history teachers as learning partners with the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, Florida Atlantic University, History Alive!, Colonial Williamsburg, and local museums and historical societies, as well as with the African-American Research Library, the Fort Lauderdale Historical Society, and the Florida Humanities Council. Targeting elementary and secondary teachers in low-performing schools in a district where students come from 164 countries, the program includes two-week summer institutes and Saturday workshops, including content immersion, colloquia, curriculum development, technology, and mentoring/coaching. Master teachers developed through the project through intensive seminars will implement a coaching/mentoring program as part of the permanent curriculum and provide annual professional development to other U.S. history teachers. Year 1 focuses on the Land of the Free, which will span the 15th through the 18th centuries. Year 2 will present content on 19th Century internal struggles, and Year 3 on the 20th and 21st Centuries.

All 78 teachers of a new, year-long eighth grade American history course in the district's 26 middle schools will participate in this professional development program partnering the LEA with the University of South Florida History Department, the Organization of American Historians, and the Library of Congress's "Adventures of the Mind" partner, Quincy University. Content and pedagogical expertise will be gained through 15-day summer institutes, immersion experiences at historic sites, quarterly seminars, 60 hours of independent work, classroom observations, mentoring, monthly colloquia, video-conferences, national workshops, scholarly lectures, and website resources. Summer institutes focus on the history content of 3 periods: 1789-1815; 1815-1850; and 1857-1877. Quincy University will provide an online college-level course on using the digital resources available on the Library of Congress's American Memory, Exhibitions, and America's Library portals.