Jump-start your student's participation in National History Day with this virtual learning experience.

Matt Reeves - Special Collections Librarian, history PhD, and experienced National History Day Judge - will join your class and lead students through a lesson plan that introduces National History Day and explores this year's prompt.

By the end of the experience, students will understand the purpose of National History Day research projects, be able to explain the prompt, and have brainstormed three research topics that they could use as a foundation for a National History Day project.

This experience combines lectures and small group activities. Library staff have access to a Zoom account to facilitate screen sharing and breakout groups, but are also open to other platforms that schools may provide.

There are millions of sources online. How should students get started? What are they looking for and how will they know what they're looking at?

Join historian, special collections librarian, and educator Matt Reeves for a live overview of researching materials online. This soup-to-nuts overview starts with formatting a research question and covers identifying and assessing primary and secondary sources online. By combining lecturettes with small group working sessions, students will learn hands-on where to find materials and how to evaluate those materials.

This session is particularly useful for student groups starting research projects and can be tailored to specific project and source materials. Some typically useful primary source collections are the Internet Archive, the Chronicling America Project at the Library of Congress, and the Missouri Valley Room's own KCHistory.org.

Library staff can facilitate using Zoom, or participate through your preferred learning platform.

Archives are here for students, researchers, and the public. But there's often a disconnect between our efforts to offer materials and student perceptions and awareness of the archives.

Staff will introduce the concept of an archive in a brief lecturette, then lead students through a series of small group activities to practice searching and accessing online archives to find primary source documents.

Staff can facilitate this lesson through our library Zoom account, We can also join using school provided platforms.

Have an idea for a lesson plan or collaboration that isn't listed here? Sign up for a time and reach out to us with desired learning outcomes. We'll brainstorm activities and assessments and come up with a change of pace experience for your class.

Got a learning need? Want a brief instructional video that you can pair with an exercise? Contact us and we'll work with you to curate content and create an inquiry-based lesson plan that you can deliver and facilitate.