2025 North Carolina Council for the Social Studies Conference

Explore and gain strategies to foster respectful dialogue among middle school students with diverse perspectives to advance students’ interest and engagement in any Social Studies classroom. Educators will learn engaging, research-backed methods that boost academic and social-emotional development and lower the temperature of polarization. Educators will receive free tools, discussion strategies, and assessment ideas to integrate civil discourse into any Social Studies content, preparing students to navigate challenging issues with empathy and understanding.

This professional development (PD) session is designed to provide educators with effective strategies for creating rigorous and engaging Social Studies classrooms. The focus will be on fostering a sense of belonging, promoting arts integration, differentiation, and supporting reading and writing across the curriculum, all while emphasizing cultural relevance. Participants will explore how the arts can enrich social studies education and learn methods to incorporate the arts to encourage critical thinking, engagement, and creativity in their lessons. This session will equip educators with the knowledge and skills needed to design dynamic classrooms that enhance student learning, promote inclusivity, and improve achievement in social studies. I am confident that this PD experience will be both enriching and valuable for all participants.

Social studies teachers are often faced with dwindling resources and a growing spectrum of student background knowledge and ability levels in their classrooms.One possible solution lies in the seemingly limitless scope of AI platforms and its generative abilities. In this session we’ll discuss takeaways from using multiple AI platforms to support social studies content development as well as the implications on inclusive course content, diverse learners, and Universal Design for Learning.

It can take hours to find the right resources and even longer to get them ready for your students. Kindred K-12 is an AI-based teaching platform that makes it easier for you to find, adapt, and use high-quality resources, like primary sources, for your classroom. We help social studies teachers build inquiry-based classrooms customized to what works best for them and their students. This session gets you started with Kindred and walks through a demo of what it can do for you. Curriculum and instruction leaders are welcome to learn more about how our technology can encourage research-backed teaching practices in your district. Geared 6-12. All are welcome.

This session is designed to help teachers hold meaningful and productive conversations with their students about public policies, controversial issues, and current events. It offers tools and teaching strategies that can make fostering civil discourse in the classroom feel less overwhelming and challenging.

To more effectively prepare teachers the field of education is amidst a “practice-turn” to emphasize the practice of teaching and mastery of skills directly related to effective classroom instruction (e.g., Grossman, 2018; Mancenido, 2023). Practice based teacher education emphasizes using the learning cycle to deconstruct, observe, practice and enact high leverage practices. This session will explore the use of a variety of intentionally structured simulation experiences including Mursion, a mixed reality platform that uses a combination of artificial intelligence and live human interaction to create immersive simulations for learning and practice teaching civics in an undergraduate social studies methods course.

How can you incorporate the histories of Brazil or Cuba in your U.S. History, World History, or Latin American Studies course? With Choices Program curriculum units of course! We’ll explore the student readings, lessons, and videos found in both the History, Revolution, and Reform: New Directions for Cuba unit, and the Brazil: A History of Change unit, and discuss ways you can incorporate them, in whole or in part, into your classroom. Each unit is about 10-15 days in length and is appropriate for middle and high school classrooms. Free one-year Digital Editions license to one of the units (your choice) is provided.

This session explores how elementary social studies educators can effectively integrate WIDA Standards to support multilingual learners in accessing and engaging with social studies content. Through hands-on activities, participants will analyze social studies tasks, adapt materials, and create learning objectives that align with both academic content standards and language development goals. Also, will examine strategies for scaffolding instruction to build academic language while fostering critical thinking and inquiry-based learning. The session will highlight examples of using WIDA’s Proficiency Level Descriptors and Key Language Uses (Narrate, Inform, Explain, and Argue,) to design lessons that are inclusive and culturally and linguistically sustaining.

Social Studies classes are enriched by inquiry – but what about the practicalities of incorporating it into your practice? Teachers attending this session will walk away with research-based materials addressing implementation hurdles of inquiry. Topics include: supporting ELLs, working towards student-led discussion, addressing digital literacies, differentiating inquiry, and improving compelling questions. Materials include lesson plans as well as teacher guides for specific scaffolds with examples. These materials can be incorporated into your existing curriculum and schedule. Geared towards 6-12. All Welcome. Hosted by Kindred K-12.

The session introduces the student readings, lessons, and videos in the Choices Program’s award-winning unit, The Vietnam War: Origins, History, and Legacies, and provides teachers with a complimentary one-year license to the unit. The session demonstrates an innovative “long history” framework to the study of war and demonstrates ways to bring multiple voices and perspectives into the study of the Vietnam War. Appropriate for U.S. History, World History, Foreign Policy electives, Asian Studies, and several AP and IB courses, the session will include participating in a very abbreviated lesson on creating Historical Narratives and one on women in the Vietnam War.

Participants explore the events of the Holocaust through the lens of media, by examining propaganda deployed by the Nazis to discriminate against Jews and other minorities. Educators gain tools to facilitate classroom discussions and support students to analyze media in today’s world. This session would be most appropriate for NC social studies courses in grades 6-11.

On November 10, 1898 the only successful coup d'etat in America took place in Wilmington, North Carolina. The insurrection ended with many of Wilmington’s African-American citizens murdered, many more fled Wilmington never to return, while still others were barred from the city in perpetuity. The Daily Record, the black-owned and published newspaper also had its building burned to the ground by insurrectionists. Self-avowed “white supremacists” led the insurrection that had been building for months with racially charged language and accusations. The aftermath of this massacre on Wilmington, North Carolina, and the South as a whole was palpable and repercussions were felt for many decades. This is a part of North Carolina history and United States history about which many are not aware. If you attend this session, you will learn more about the role played by Charles B. Aycock, Furnifold Simmons, Alfred M. Waddell, the Secret 9, the Redshirts, and Alex Manly, as well as The News and Observer. Come to this session to learn more about the famous people, the forgotten people, and the little-known events of the Wilmington Massacre/Insurrection of 1898. We will also discuss how this historical event continues to have an effect on the present.

Elementary students need to learn the beauty of the natural world before they become interested in saving it. Young children learn through their senses and experiences. Everyday children learn how the weather changes, how people interact with the environment, how things move, the characteristics of a place and how things are built. Teachers can help children learn the basis for geographic knowledge in everyday experiences. Participants will explore concrete suggestions and interesting activities including connections for both the classroom and to share with parents at home. Participants will experience hands-on activities together connecting everyday things to expand geographic thinking using maps, globes, books and exhibits.

Join our interactive session to explore how Reading Apprenticeship has enhanced disciplinary literacy in Social Studies, aligning with North Carolina's Standard Course of Study Standards. Experience classroom routines, led by a North Carolina Social Studies teacher, that empower students to engage critically with global topics/issues/narratives while fostering empathy and collaboration. Participate in text-based inquiry and discussions that bring historical and contemporary issues to life. Our exemplar lesson is on international trade and its impact on North Carolina. In this particular lesson, you will experience routines to that support reading infographics and reading for making a claim/disciplinary argumentation. You will learn more broadly about how instruction anchored in the Reading Apprenticeship framework can build more engaged and independent readers of Social Studies texts.