Please continue to check this page for more information about our upcoming teacher institutes!

Questions? Please email Grace Morizawa, NJAHS Education Coordinator at grace@njahs.org

Current Projects:

Farm Labor While Confined

War Relocation Authority Incarceree Farm Labor Teacher Education Project

– Free Online Workshop for 4th Grade to 12th Grade Humanities, History, and Social Studies Teachers –

During World War II, the federal government forcibly removed people of Japanese ancestry on the West Coast and imprisoned them in American concentration camps. A little-known part of their story is that the War Relocation Authority (WRA) expected them to grow food to feed themselves, contribute to the war effort, and make barren lands flourish under the most difficult of circumstances. How did the incarcerees grapple with these demands?

Mark your calendar for our next dynamic workshop – Farm Labor While Confined. Our case studies will take us from concentration camp farms to sugar beet fields to potato harvests across five states. We will focus on six incarceration sites: Tule Lake (CA), Minidoka (ID), Gila River (AZ), Poston (AZ), Amache (CO), and Heart Mountain (WY). Part of our discussion will address the Temporary Farm Leave Program and the Farm Labor Camps in which incarcerees worked on private farms and large agricultural tracts that were facing labor shortages due to the war.

Join your colleagues for open-ended inquiry into this important historic moment when the personal experience of imprisoned people of Japanese ancestry intersects with 1940s US labor history. What is the legacy of their agricultural labor on the Western American landscape?

Join your colleagues for open-ended inquiry into Japanese American incarcerees’ farm labor during World War II

These two-day, 3-1/2 hour online or 6 hour in-person interactive workshops, (length depends on regional location), explores our topic through examination of primary source documents, case studies, images, and secondary sources in the Farm Labor While Confined curriculum. Sessions will be broken up with 15-minute breaks.

The curriculum will focus the following:
– Farming in the War Relocation Centers
– Temporary Farm Labor
– Department of Agriculture Farm Labor Camps

Separate curriculum is designed elementary and for secondary students.

Limited Space! Apply Now

Click here for more info

We Are All Americans 2021

Free Online Workshop for Elementary Teachers

Select one workshop

Wednesday June 23
Saturday June 26 – 09:00 to 12:30 Pacific Time

Stipend of $150

Full Resource Packet

Space Limited

Apply by June 21, 2021

How did the experience of being forcibly removed from their homes and incarcerated affect the choices made by people of Japanese ancestry as they responded to the government’s call for loyalty?

Mark your calendar for workshop–We Are All Americans. We Are All Americans is a multi-media inquiry curricula for teachers of grades 4 to 5. Our goal is to provide curricula that prompts students to ask questions, to discern how and use evidence to support claims, and to immerse themselves in the practice of historical thinking as they learn independently and through collaborations with their peers. We want students to explore the decisions faced by people of Japanese ancestry including the youth when confined in the WRA Centers and DOJ internment camps.

Join your colleagues for open-ended inquiry into what it means to be American – then and now. Why did some individuals believe civil rights should be restored before service, while others were committed to proving themselves to gain back civil rights?

Please join us in a teacher workshop either on Wednesday, June 23 or Saturday June 26 for a 3 hour and 30 minutes interactive workshops live online. See page 3 for more details.

The project was funded in part, by the California Civil Liberties Act.

Download the registration form and flyer here

Past workshops

We Are All Americans 2020

Professional Development for Middle & Secondary Educators

CHICAGO – June 29-30

BOISE – July 9-10

SEATTLE – July 15,16,17

MINNEAPOLIS – July 19, 30, 31

WASHINGTON, DC – August 4, 5

Workshop Details

Workshops range from 2 to 5 days depending on the region.
Each daily session will be 2 hours and 30 minutes (includes three 15 minute breaks).
Email support for the curriculum is available during the school year.
There is an optional opportunity to participate in a small online study group for classroom adaption of the curriculum and other teaching implications.
Participants will be given an honorarium for attending. The stipend amount varies by regional workshop as they vary in amount of time.

Technology

We will use Zoom and a yet to be decided back-up program.
Participants are required to have access to the Internet to participate in the workshop; a dependable connection and high-speed Internet is strongly recommended for an optimal experience.
Attendees must have visual and audio support to interact with colleagues. The sessions require the use a webcam to help create a shared learning experience.
We will have a brief tech check-in for all participants prior to the workshop and tech support will be available during the workshop.

Download Application Here

Limited Space! Apply Now

PAST WORKSHOPS