SVP IV: Niagara and Lowell

Summer Vacation Planning IV
NEH Workshops

For me, this summer is for travel. After getting back from Rome, Thessaloniki, and Istanbul*, there will be more.

The National Endowment for the Humanities sponsors:

which are one-week workshops in American history. Although their principal audience would seem to be history teachers, I was told they accept the token math or science person. So I figured I could try and apply for two of them (the max allowed). And I got both.

The last week of July I will be attending the

Click below for more

at Niagara College. The empires refer to British and French, but I guess the US frontier and the Iroquois could somehow be involved as well. They suggest math teachers might analyze the geometry of battle plans, but I'm concentrating on Niagara Falls which I've never seen and Toronto, also never seen and only an hour away (?).

The week after that I will go to Lowell, Massachussetts to study "The Industrialization of America" at the Tsongas Industrial History Center, (plus a day in Old Sturbridge Village).

Why would a math teacher torture himself with this trip? Might be interesting. Pays a little (as does Niagara.) Free vacation, sort of. Minimal work required (produce some lessons). My high school has a history focus, and we actually visit Lowell with the freshmen each year. And best of all, I'll stay with my mom who lives a few towns away.

* The basic outline of the big trip is: a day in Rome, 2 weeks in and around northern Greece, and a week in Istanbul. I've discussed them in Summer Vacation Planning part I, part II, and part III.