Encourage your Senator to support National History Day Funding!

Senator Norm Coleman (R-MN)  has filed amendment number 3364 to the fiscal year 2008 Labor, Health and Human Services and Education Appropriations Bill which the Senate is debating.  The Coleman amendment would provide $2 million in funding for National History Day.  "From the total federal funding, $50,000 would go to directly benefit Ohio teachers and students.  Staff will be able to do more outreach, workshops, and free materials," according to Megan Wood, the state coordinator of National History Day in Ohio.

TAKE ACTION!

What can you do? 

• Please call both Senator Voinovich and Senator Brown TODAY and ask to speak to the Senator’s Education Legislative Assistant.

Senator Sherrod Brown (202) 224-2315; Education Legislative Assistant William Jawando (william_jawando@brown.senate.gov)

Senator George Voinovich (202) 224-3353; webform available at voinovich.senate.gov<http://voinovich.senate.gov/>.

• Encourage the senators to cosponsor and support the Coleman Amendment to fund National History Day for $2 million.  They can contact Andy Burmeister in Senator Coleman's office at (202) 224-5641.

• Leave this message on voicemail if the Education Legislative Assistant is unavailable.

• Encourage your colleagues to contact them as well!

National History Day in Ohio is a co-curricular program for grades 4-5 (Ohio History Day only) and 6-12.  Students choose a topic related to the annual theme and use their research to create a paper, performance, documentary, exhibit or website.  With History Day, students not only report about their research, they support a thesis statement and create an annotated bibliography.  By doing history, students gain skills in research, literacy, critical thinking and public speaking.

National History Day in Ohio (NHD-OH) has 11 District (or regional) events that feed into Ohio History Day (April 26, 2008 at Columbus State Community College).  The top two projects in each category are selected to represent Ohio at National History Day in June at the University of Maryland.

Since 1974, NHD-OH has been serving students and teachers around the state.  The staff is available for free outreach visits to the classroom to help jump-start the program.  Last year over 350 schools, over 375 teachers and 8000 students participated in NHD-OH at various levels of the program.  Find out more about National History Day in Ohio at www.ohiohistory.org/historyday.

You are invited to participate in Statehood Day! 
Save the date - Tuesday, March 4, 2008

Join members of the Ohio Historical Society on Tuesday 4 March 2008 in small meetings with State Senators and State Representatives to share the importance of history for our students and in our state.  Last year's visits had a tremendous impact, according to Todd Kleismit, OHS Director of Government Relations.  Contact him at tkleismit@ohiohistory.org<mailto:tkleismit@ohiohistory.org> if you are interested in participating.

Visit http://www.socialstudies.org/legislative/ for National Council for the Social Studies Legislative Updates.