The History & Civics Project at UC Santa Cruz
CHSSP Resource Spotlights
The California History-Social Science Project’s state office curates these thematic monthly lists:
Our Responsibility
We, with our CHSSP partner sites, clarify our stance.
Teaching Critical Missions
In partnership with native scholars, the Amah Mutsun Tribal Band, and educators, we are working to transform the teaching of the California missions.
News:
- Interrogating and Re-Imagining Artistic, Literacy, and Historical Representations
Mid Year Update Since launching our Interrogating and Reimagining Representations project for Ethnic Studies, we have been thrilled with the level of excitement and engagement from educators and community members. Taking inspiration from across various disciplines, local educators have been developing Ethnic Studies lessons that prompt students to reimagine dominant narratives that show up in…Continue Reading Interrogating and Re-Imagining Artistic, Literacy, and Historical Representations - Teacher Inquiry Groups: Focusing Collaboration
Historical events and individuals, cross-cutting themes and concepts, essential skills and dispositions, connections to multiple communities and the present—a history/social science teacher’s course and scope and sequence is far-ranging and crowded to say the least. To teach their students well, teachers know all kinds of things and are both generalists and specialists. But there is…Continue Reading Teacher Inquiry Groups: Focusing Collaboration - Can thinking historically about race and whiteness serve as an antiracist pedagogy?
This past summer (2021), over 90 teachers and several renowned scholars came together to explore the history of racial categories for a three-day workshop supported by the Library of Congress Teaching with Primary Sources program. We looked at different historical case studies to explore how race has been constructed, how it’s changed over time, and…Continue Reading Can thinking historically about race and whiteness serve as an antiracist pedagogy? - Bell Removal Ceremony
The last of three commemorative mission bells in Santa Cruz was removed August 28, 2021 from where it has stood since 1906. This act of healing signals concerted efforts by the Amah Mutsun Tribal Band to remove these symbols celebrating the colonial past and the brutal missionization of California. The Critical Missions Project aims…Continue Reading Bell Removal Ceremony - The Civic Seal is Here!
California adopted the State Seal of Civic Engagement in the Fall of 2020. It is designed to honor and award students who demonstrate extended and deep civic engagement through meeting five criteria. We are excited about this initiative, not only because it explicitly recognizes the importance of civic learning and education for California’s youth, but…Continue Reading The Civic Seal is Here! - What Makes a Democracy?
In the Summer of 2020, we produced What Makes a Democracy, a Teaching with Primary Sources workshop sponsored by the Library of Congress . In the midst of a global pandemic and an unprecedented racial reckoning, with all the uncertainty and unsettledness that that meant, we still had more than 50 educators show up to…Continue Reading What Makes a Democracy?