Welcome all Teachers and Schools
If you would like to become a designated Quadricentennial School or Class
please click here and fill out and send in the school application.
Dear Quadricentennial Teachers & Schools,
The year 2009 marks the 400th anniversary of Hudson and Champlain’s voyages along the river and lake that bear their names and the 200th anniversary of Fulton’s successful steamboat voyage and establishment of steam commerce on the Hudson River. From Quebec to New York Harbor, a wealth of exciting events and activities are being planned. We invite all of you to join in this spectacular commemoration year.
This state’s fourth, fifth and seventh grade teachers in the Hudson and Champlain valleys will play a pivotal role as they ignite the imagination of their students in preparing to both learn more about and celebrate our valleys’ and state’s great history. We hope to support these efforts in a variety of ways.
There is curriculum for your use. The NYSED Champlain/Hudson/Fulton Commemoration Online Resource was created as a result of the collaborative work of the education committee of the NYS Hudson-Fulton-Champlain Quadricentennial Commission. This online resource includes 10 standards-based, interdisciplinary elementary, middle and commencement level instructional modules and three scholarly overviews that focus on the broad themes of encounter, trade and commerce. It also provides a guide, “Strategies for Using the Champlain, Hudson, Fulton Online Resource”, that was designed to help local school districts incorporate the modules into their local instructional programs. The project brings together resources from OCE, including documents, maps and video clips for P-16 curriculum specialists and classroom teachers. This resource can be accessed at http://www.emsc.nysed.gov/ciai/chf/chf.html or through the NYSED Virtual Learning System.
Another great curriculum tool for teachers in the Hudson Valley has been posted through the efforts of another of Explore NY 400's partners, “Teaching the Hudson Valley,” www.TeachingtheHudsonValley.org, as they introduce a completely redesigned web site. This site features a searchable, place-based lesson plan service with creative ideas for celebrating the Quadricentennial. It also allows you to share your own place-based lessons and activities. In addition, the new site maps more than 250 important places in the Valley, enabling you to find sites close to your school, locate lessons and activities related to those places, and contact site staff for information about Quadricentennial-related programs and exhibits.
And there is more…
The 2009 New York Statewide Summer Reading Program will be partnering with the Hudson-Fulton-Champlain Quadricentennial in three ways:
An addendum will be added to the Summer Reading Program Manual with ideas on incorporating the Quadricentennial themes with the Statewide Summer Reading Program theme for 2009. The New York State Council for the Humanities will be working with the NYS Library on the manual addendum. A New York State History Reading list for 2009 that would connect with the 2009 New York State Summer Reading Program will be created and distributed throughout the state in collaboration with the Youth Services Section and the School Library Media Section of the New York Library Association.
For those looking for field trip possibilities, there will be an exhibit at the New York State Museum in Albany to introduce visitors to the age of exploration and a view of the world in the late 16th and early 17th centuries. The exhibition will re-examine Hudson’s voyage of 1609 and explore the legacies, short term and long term, of Hudson’s accidental discovery. It will further consider how Dutch traders, then settlers, interacted with the Native American people of the Hudson River Valley and explore how those relationships influenced the culture and history of New York State and the United States.
In addition, the Museum of the City of New York has an upcoming exhibition, Amsterdam/New Amsterdam: The Worlds of Henry Hudson, which will open on April 4, 2009, the anniversary of the date Henry Hudson set sail on the voyage that led him to the New World and the river that bears his name. A collaboration between the Museum, the Netherlands National Archives and the National Maritime Museum in Amsterdam, Amsterdam/New Amsterdam will explore the world from which Hudson came and the world he helped create. It will provide visitors with the opportunity to see very rare and seldom exhibited maps that were drawn of New York and North America, including a Johannes Vingboons map, circa 1650, charting Hudson's discovery of the New World. Another rare artifact in the exhibition is the Mercator Globe, tracing the evolving Dutch vision of the world as they expanded their trading centers. The exhibition will analyze the seminal Dutch contribution to the character of New York.
Please let us know how we can be of more support over the fall and be sure to send us a letter declaring your class a Quadricentennial Class! We will follow up with a poster, flag, decals and a proclamation from New York State Governor Paterson to support and build excitement in your classroom.
Together, we have an extraordinary opportunity to make this year among the most memorable in our lifetimes and one that is extraordinary in our state’s history. Great thanks for all you are doing as partners in New York’s 400th!
Warm regards,
Tara Sullivan
Executive Director
Hudson Fulton Champlain Quadricentennial
Click here to see a list of Quadricentennial Schools !
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