MTHS Textbook Receives Excellence Award from AASLH

• June 29 2023

The textbook “Montana: A History of Our Home” is the winner of the American Association for State and Local History’s Award of Excellence.

The award is part of the AASLH Leadership in History Awards, which is the most prestigious recognition for achievement in the preservation of state and local history. AASLH is a national nonprofit, providing leadership and resources to help the history community thrive and make the past more meaningful for all people.

“Montana: A History of Our Home” is a new fourth-grade curriculum, which includes a student textbook and a robust, activity-based teacher’s guide. According to University of Montana education professor Matthew Schertz, the book “is the most significant Montana state history textbook ever written for elementary students.” He adds that the curriculum “cultivates an experimental and creative spirit by design. Students are afforded the opportunity to study diaries, maps, advertisements, census records, paintings, and pictures.”

Martha Kohl, the MTHS Outreach and Interpretation Program manager, wrote the textbook after receiving numerous emails and telephone calls from elementary teachers asking if she knew of any Montana history curriculum that targeted fourth-grade students.

“While the MTHS has long had an active ‘hands-on history footlocker program’ that addresses various topics, we didn’t have anything comprehensive,” Kohl said. “The need for a textbook was clear, especially once the Montana Board of Education approved new social studies standards, requiring that all fourth graders be able to explain how Montana has changed over time.”

The AASLH awards program was initiated in 1945 to establish and encourage standards of excellence in the collection, preservation, and interpretation of state and local history throughout the United States. The AASLH Leadership in History Awards not only honor significant achievement in the field of state and local history, but also bring public recognition of the opportunities for small and large organizations, institutions, and programs to make contributions in this arena. Learn more at www.aaslh.org.