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The San Juan College National History Day curriculum was written by Librarian Jennifer Goodland. Claude AI was used to align formatting.
There are no restrictions on redistribution, alteration, printing, or other usage of the NHD curriculum! San Juan College would be honored to have NHD teachers, administrators, and parents using these materials as they wish to support interest in history research. Attribution is appreciated but not required. If you do use this curriculum or have suggestions for improvements, please let Jennifer know at goodlandj@sanjuancollege.edu.
The SJC-NHD curriculum was designed to exclude the use of screen-based learning. This was done partially because New Mexico schools prohibit the use of smartphones in the K-12 classroom. But the primary reason behind excluding screen usage in this curriculum is due to the numerous cognitive and neurological benefits of tactile learning: Manipulating index cards to represent design choices. The way that physical writing tasks encourage slow deliberation of thought. The strong links between depth of understanding and the development of fine motor skills. The expansion of NHD activities for students who do not have access to laptops at home. And, of course, the ability of parents to participate in these hands-on activities with their children, feeling the stickiness of the glue, rearranging source excerpts and thesis statements like Lego made of words, shuffling exhibit components - producing something that the entire family can be proud of as they send their child to NHD competitions. An NHD project can be finished and submitted on a screen. The thinking work? That can take place offline.
We hope that our K-12 partners enjoy these resources!
