Beginning Monday, November 15, the Heart Mountain Wyoming Foundation will be accepting applications from educators to participate in two weeklong workshops sponsored by the National Endowment for the Humanities.
The workshops, entitled “Heart Mountain, Wyoming, and the Japanese American Incarceration,” will take place June 19-24 and July 24-29 at Heart Mountain Interpretive Center and other sites around Cody and Powell, Wyoming. The NEH Landmarks of American History and Culture grant program, which provided funding for these workshops, was developed to teach educators, using place-based pedagogy, about key aspects of American history.
Participating K-12 educators will hear from a faculty of international and local experts about the forced removal and incarceration of 120,000 Japanese Americans from the West Coast during World War II. The workshops will place these events in the larger context of Wyoming history, and will include segments on Native American history related to Heart Mountain and the stories of the homesteaders that moved onto the project after the camp was closed.
Heart Mountain received a similar grant from the NEH in 2019, but the in-person workshops slated for 2020 were postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The workshops were later held online, in the summer of 2021. Heart Mountain plans to hold the summer 2022 workshops in person. “Last year’s online events were very successful,” executive director Dakota Russell said, “but we are especially excited about bringing educators to Wyoming next summer.”
Workshop organizers are seeking a diverse group of educators from around the country to participate. A total of 72 educators, from 31 different states, took part in last year’s sessions. The Heart Mountain Wyoming Foundation will select another 72 participants for the upcoming workshops.
The application period ends March 1, 2022. Successful applicants will be notified by March 25, 2022.
For more information, visit the workshop website HERE.