Science at a History Museum?
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- US Army engineers struggled to repair existing roads, like this section winding through the mountains in southeastern China, and link them with new routes being constructed in northern Burma. The National Archives and Records Administration.
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- A US truck convoy along the recently completed Ledo Road, January 28, 1945. From the Collection of The National WWII Musuem.
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- A Chinese soldier guards a P-40 painted with the Flying Tigers' famous shark face. National Archives and Records Administration.
This month’s Calling All Teachers e-newsletter highlights Real World Science, a FREE week-long professional development seminar exploring how the urgent needs of World War II spurred tremendous scientific and technological innovations.
Twenty-eight middle school science teachers will spend the week of July 17-23, 2016 in New Orleans, where they will experience hands-on how necessity, knowledge, perseverance and skill lead to inventions, innovation, and careers in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics). The application deadline is March 4.
The February Calling All Teachers e-newsletter also showcases the Museum’s many Black History month resources. These include our 2016 Student Essay Contest, which is relates to the Museum’s special exhibit, Fighting for the Right to Fight: African American Experiences in WWII.
Your students can also explore African Americans’ wartime struggle against totalitarianism abroad and racism at home through a special offer on our Double Victory Virtual Field Trip. In conjunction with Digital Learning Day, you can book this field trip for February 15-19 for $50. That’s half the normal price!
The 2016 National History Day theme of “Exploration, Encounter & Exchange” also offers opportunities for students to research and explore African Americans’ wartime experiences through the lives of service members such as Medal of Honor recipient Vernon Baker.
Finally, this month’s Calling All Teachers shines the spotlight on the Ledo Road since the first Allied convoy along that engineering marvel reached Kunming, China seventy-one years ago this week. After Japan’s May 1942 seizure of Burma eliminated the last overland supply route between India and China, army engineers – most of whom were African American – hacked a new road through dense jungle and along steep and winding mountainsides.
Students can view one of the surveying tools that African American engineering battalions used when laying out the Ledo Road here. They can also learn about the restoration of the Curtiss P-40 Warhawk that now hangs above the Museum gallery devoted to the China-Burma-India Theater through this video, and they can research the CBI through the Museum’s Digital Collections.
Get more classroom resources and ideas by signing up for our free monthly e-newsletter Calling All Teachers and following us on Twitter @wwiieducation.
Post by Dr. Walter Stern, K-12 Curriculum Coordinator at The National WWII Museum.
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