Project History
A primary goal in both past and current work of the Regional Learning Project is our ongoing effort to seek partnerships with tribal educators to amass and digitize primary resource materials regarding tribal history and culture to serve as authentic educational resources for students, teachers, and lifelong learners. Completed projects from that effort are described below, representing the development of a wide range of products and workshops. These projects include: producing documentary films and educational DVDs, developing websites, classroom resources, and curriculum guides, researching and reproducing historical map collections, and writing grants to provide online courses and professional development workshops for educators. Completed projects are listed below. Visit Current Projects to learn more about the collaborative partnerships in our current work.
Partnerships:
Lifelong Learning Online (L3) Project
The Lifelong Learning Online (L3) project began with a Senate appropriation in 2001 for a collaborative effort among the universities of Montana, Idaho, and Wheeling Jesuit to develop distance learning materials, including a website, for teachers and others, using the Lewis and Clark Expedition as a springboard for learning. The Regional Learning Project team, at UM, focused on tribal homelands through which the explorers passed and the subsequent history at particular locales along the route. The story is told through varied perspectives. This collaboration resulted in a website that was hosted by the University of Idaho until 2007.
The Lifelong Learning Online (L3) Project gave direction for new work that resulted in the Trail Tribes website and two documentary films, Native Homelands and Contemporary Voices.
Trail Tribes Website
The Trail Tribes website introduces viewers to the tribal homelands and subsequent history of six native groups who encountered Lewis and Clark, including Lakota, Mandan-Hidatsa, Blackfeet, Shoshone, Columbia Plateau and Chinook-Clatsop. Primary historical resources and contemporary accounts by tribal representatives comprise the content of this richly illustrated website, which presents authentic resources on Traditional Culture, Contemporary Culture, and Relationship with the U.S.
Lewis and Clark in Columbia River Country
Under contract with the Washington State Historical Society, RLP produced and provided content for this web-based educational site exploring the stories of Lewis & Clark’s encounters with Columbia River tribes.
The Treaty Trail: U.S. ‒ Indian Treaty Councils in the Northwest
Under contract with the Washington State Historical Society, RLP provided content for this web-based educational site, which explores the treaty-making era in the Northwest between the United States and Indian tribes. The website provides material on ancestral tribal homelands and cultures and the changes brought about by settlers and subsequent treaties.
Lewis and Clark and the Indian Country: 200 Years of American History
The Regional Learning Project collaborated with the Newberry Library of Chicago under National Endowment for the Humanities grant funding to produce this website and provide the “Indian Voices” content for this online exhibit. Along with rich imagery and text, the website features RLP interview material with tribal educators and elders from across the region.
Indian Education For All DVD Project
The Indian Education Office at OPI, Helena, contracted with us to convert three PowerPoint presentations into classroom DVDs. These elementary school resources ‒ Long Ago in Montana, Tribes of Montana and How They Got Their Names, and Talking Without Words ‒ were copied and distributed to every elementary school in Montana. We retained the rights to reproduce the products for national sales. See Productions.
Montana Tribes Website
The website, montanatribes.org, is an educational resource for Montana citizens and educators, developed for use in implementing Indian Education for All. This project was a collaboration between Montana’s Office of Public Instruction and the University of Montana’s Regional Learning Project in the Center for Continuing Education. This web-based resource features a large digital archive of video interviews with tribal educators and elders discussing a wide spectrum of topics, and is organized to support Montana’s Essential Understandings about Montana Indians.
Teaching American History Grants
Teaching American History grants are supported by the Federal Department of Education. They provide history teachers with professional development through a wide variety of approaches. Regional Learning Project staff have participated in grants of other institutions in Montana and Washington, providing cross-cultural and place-based content for teachers, and assisting them with primary research in local and regional archives.
RLP director, Sally Thompson, served as Project Director for Time Travelers: Teaching American History in the Northwest, 2005-2009. In addition to working with the UM history department to provide content through an online course and hosting three weeklong summer institutes, this grant led to the development of a website for history teachers in the region: nwhistorycourse.org.