June 23-June 30, 2024

Content Specialist: Dr. Matt Mason

Pedagogy Specialist: Cindy Ness

This seminar will explore the founding generations and founding principles of the United States as seen through the lenses of religion, ethnicity, and slavery in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States. The Field Study will take place in Virginia, Maryland, Washington D.C. and Philadelphia. It will communicate an understanding that the Mid-Atlantic can be considered one region in the colonial, Revolutionary, and early national periods. That region in these eras was characterized by religious and ethnic diversity, as well as complicated attitudes and practices in relation to race and slavery. Eligible to Apply/Travel: All 3 grade levels: elementary, junior high, high school (5th, 8th, High School US History) Field Study participants will visit locations significant in the evolution of the new nation, including museums, battlefields, and colonial sites created to commemorate important events and individuals. This course is designed for teachers of United States History and is intended for Jr. High School and 5th grade Elementary teachers who include the teaching of Colonial America, the Revolution and Constitutional Principles in their social studies curriculum. Teachers will study significant issues, events, leaders, principles and movements in this region in the colonial, Revolutionary, and early national eras. The tour will start at the Colonial Triangle in Virginia, e.g. Jamestown, Williamsburg and Yorktown. Participants will study early English agricultural settlement of the South, including the beginnings of the North American slave trade. In Williamsburg they will study the formation of colonial governments and in Yorktown they will study this key campaign of the Revolutionary War. Participants will then study the lives and ideals of Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and George Washington at their respective homes, Monticello, Montpelier, and Mount Vernon. At Colonial St. Mary’s City, participants will study the contentious Catholic and Protestant settlement of Maryland and the resulting Toleration Act. In Washington D.C., participants they will have the opportunity to study slavery at the National African American Smithsonian Museum. Lastly participants will travel to Philadelphia where they will visit Independence Hall, the National Constitution Center, and the Museum of the American Revolution as well as important sites in the diverse religious history of this region. Participation in the field study will require rigorous physical activity