Rhode Island Historical Society Awarded Grant to Complete Online Rhode Island History Textbook
PROVIDENCE, R.I. – The Rhode Island Historical Society (RIHS), has been awarded a $10,000 matching grant from the Rhode Island Council for the Humanities (RICH) to complete seven chapters for EnCompass: A Digital Archive of Rhode Island History, and online textbook for K-12 students and educators. RIHS partners with Providence College’s Phillips Memorial Library who sponsors the website and provides technical support for the site.
EnCompass was first launched in 2016 thanks to a previous award from RICH for preliminary research and teacher focus groups. EnCompass currently has two live chapters with two chapters in progress. The seven additional chapters covered by this grant will be completed in September of 2020 and covers topics deemed necessary by teachers in the earlier focus groups.
“We are thankful to the Rhode Island Council for the Humanities for their continued support of this long-term project. We say this grant will help us ‘complete’ EnCompass, but as an online source, it will never be ‘complete’ since new topics can always be explored, changes can always be made, and new primary sources can always be added. It is truly a living document. This grant will allow us to make it more robust and what will hopefully prove to be a substantial resource for students and educators of Rhode Island history,” said Geralyn Ducady, director of the RIHS’s Newell D. Goff Center for Education and Public Programs.
The award provides funding for scholarly essays, student research and writing, partnership with the Tomaquag Museum, and teacher evaluation. Chapters are aligned with Rhode Island Grade Span Expectations for Social Studies. The EnCompass project, utilizing images of primary sources and artifacts, aims to provide teachers with free resources, content, and activities for their classrooms.
Visit EnCompass at http://library.providence.edu/encompass/.
Encompass is made possible in part by a grant from the Rhode Island Council for the Humanities, an independent affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities. The Rhode Island Council for the Humanities seeds, supports, and strengthens public history, cultural heritage, civic education, and community engagement by and for all Rhode Islanders.