U.S. Embassy School Election Project Update 2020-09-10

U.S. Embassy School Election Project Update 2020-09-10

by Joannis Kaliampos -
Number of replies: 0

Dear participants in the U.S. Embassy School Election Project,

 

The school year has now begun in all parts of Germany and the U.S. and we've heard from many of you about your first experiences in the school project. While the summer holidays have allowed us all to take a deep breath from a quite unusual school year, Democrats and Republicans officially nominated their candidates for the November election. It is official now, Joe Biden with VP pick Kamala Harris will challenge the incumbent president, Donald Trump and Vice President Mike Pence, and the election campaign is now entering its hot phase!

 

We know that many of you haven't been idle—we are impressed by a record 276 course registrations for the project, including some 40 from the U.S. and Serbia, and over 1,200 users registered online so far!

 

Student webinar with David Goldfield (Oct. 1, 4–5:30 pm)

For an update on the campaign, to provide insights into what has happened so far, and, most important of all, to allow you and your students to ask questions, Dr. David Goldfield (Robert Lee Bailey Prof. of History, University of North Carolina at Charlotte) will join us again for a webinar on October 1, 4-5:30 PM (German time). Please encourage your students to submit their questions in advance via our Moodle platform in the Virtual Town Hall, our Facebook page, or via email to teachaboutus@leuphana.de. The event will begin with a brief introductory presentation by Professor Goldfield on the current state of the election and then allow plenty of time for audience questions.

 

To participate in the event, please register online via https://leuphana.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_r5rNVt89RZuc3MjrwNNd8Q. You will receive a confirmation email with a link to access the event. Participant slots are limited to 1,000—if you cannot make it, please delete your registration again to allow others to join the event.

More information on the event and updates can be found on the Teach About U.S. platform under "Online Seminars".

 

Project updates:

With the help of your feedback, we are constantly updating our teaching materials. Unfortunately, we cannot repair dead links and other errors directly in your Moodle course, but instead have included a blue info box in all courses which includes links and other updates. If you notice any other errors in your Moodle course not listed in the info box, please let us know so we can find a solution.

 

We have also recently finished the printable PDF version of the project curriculum. It is mostly the exact copy of the contents available online, but knowing that many of you are working with the materials from the demo course, this might save you some time copying and pasting these contents into a worksheet format. It is available as a print-ready PDF and as an editable Word document on our website.

 

Press inquiries:

Some of you have been approach by local press media about your project participation and have been asked by journalists about further project information. We have put together a one-page fact sheet about the project that you can forward or use for reports on your school homepage.  Please let us know about press coverage in your region so we can feature your success stories on our website.

 

Connect with colleagues, share ideas and resources:

With so many colleagues participating in this project, we are sure that many of you are enriching the project curriculum with your own teaching resources, ideas, links etc. For this purpose, we have created a Teacher Forum in the Virtual Town Hall. We encourage you to share teaching ideas and contents, or simply ask questions about the project curriculum and receive feedback. Alternatively, you can submit tips and questions via email (teachaboutus@leuphana.de) and we will post them anonymously for you.

 

Project conclusion and school competition:

As noted in your e-classroom, the deadline to submit your adopted state’s predicted election outcome and participate in the school competition is October 25, 2020. Unlike in previous election project, we will not be able to have a concluding student conference in person due to the COVID situation. We’re currently working on an alternative online program and will inform you about this in due time in the coming weeks.

 

If you just joined us, you can find all previous project updates in our newsletter section: https://www.teachaboutus.org/mod/forum/view.php?id=512 

 

With best wishes and on behalf of the Teach About U.S. Team and partners,

Joannis Kaliampos