Outreach
Curriculum
Through Hemispheres and individually, LLILAS works with educators, school districts, and state officials to “fill in the gaps” between teacher knowledge and the set goals of curricular mandates. As part of our efforts, we have created classroom-ready curriculum units utilizing primary source documents, area studies content, and classroom activities for middle and high school students.
Texas’ mandated content standards, the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS), are closely aligned to national standards in the social studies. However, you should feel free to adapt the activities to fit your classroom and your state standards.
Hemispheres
Understanding Migration: Curriculum Resources for Texas Educators
(2004)
Hemispheres has designed Understanding Migration as a TEKS-friendly resource for educators to use when exploring the basic themes and concepts of migration, using historical and contemporary examples that mesh with the TAKS for economics, geography, government, and history. Designed for middle and high school level classes, the unit can be downloaded in full or you can pick-and-choose which case studies and components to use.
People and Place: Curriculum Resources on Human-Geographic Interactions (2005)
Inspired by Hemispheres’ 2004 Summer Teachers’ Institute, People and Place: Human-Geographic Relations, this curriculum unit was designed to address human adaptation to and modification of the environment. Each case study includes myriad activities that build social studies skills by incorporating primary and secondary sources, presenting information in a variety of formats (including graphs, charts, and maps), including varied points of view, and using mathematical skills to interpret social studies information.
Inspired by the 2003 Hemispheres Summer Institute for teachers, which explored cultural contact by looking at the food we eat, Explorers, Traders, and Immigrants examines eight global commodities from their points of origin and the social, cultural, political, and economic changes they wrought along their way. Each case study covers the initial discovery of and/or access to a commodity, its progress from local good to international trade, the ramifications of large-scale production, and the drama of its boom-and-bust cycles through the years.
LLILAS and the Center for Middle Eastern Studies
Africa Enslaved: Comparative Slave Systems Outside the United States (2004)
Africa Enslaved is a work in progress, with 2 of 4 case studies completed. Designed around the Texas and national standards for history and geography, it explores comparative slave systems outside of the United States, with particular focus on Latin America, Africa, and the Middle East.
Fulbright-Hays Seminars Abroad and Group Projects Abroad Programs
Post-seminar curriculum projects from seminars and/or group projects associated with LLILAS are available for download.