2. New program sends Wisconsin teachers to Germany

Twelve Wisconsin social studies teachers have just returned from a two-week informational tour of Germany.

The teachers met with politicians, historians, educators, and students. While there, they visited schools, political institutions, corporations, museums, Holocaust memorials, and sites of German resistance against Nazism. The aim was to learn how Germany has grown and changed since World War II.

The Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction arranged the trip in partnership with a prominent German organization, Atlantik-Bruecke. Atlantik-Bruecke was founded in the post-war era with the aim of introducing Americans to a more complete picture of Germany by fostering transatlantic partnerships and relationships.

Back in Wisconsin, each teacher is now developing an instructional unit for the classroom, organized around a broad theme such as identity, immigration, or tolerance, and reflecting the teacher's new insights into the modern German experience. The participants will present their units at the Wisconsin Council for the Social Studies conference in March 2008.

Similar trips are planned for 2008 and future years. The application for the 2008 tour will be posted on the DPI's social studies page, http://dpi.wi.gov/cal/socstudies.html, in mid-December.

More information: http://dpi.wi.gov/cal/socstudies.html
More on Atlantik-Bruecke: http://www.atlantik-bruecke.org

Last updated on 7/23/2007