User:TexasTides

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The Texas Tides program is designed to connect K-12 teachers and students to museum and library collections throughout eastern Texas and parts of Mexico, culminating in a freely available website and database housing thousands of digitized primary resources associated with Texas history and culture, as well as related, custom-made curriculum materials.

The Texas Tides program is expanding to meet teachers’ needs.

Teachers involved with the initial Texas Tides project have indicated a need for increased multicultural resources (including Spanish-language materials, point-of-view resources and culturally-sensitive lesson plans). Indeed, in a state that once belonged to Mexico, and where up to 65% of public school children are classified as Hispanic, cultural awareness in the classroom is indispensable.

Teachers involved with the project also expressed a need for online teaching resources and ready-made lesson plans related to science. In 2005, the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) funded an expansion of Texas Tides, and science is a big part of the new project.

Texas Tides staff are working to create a science sister-site to the Texas Tides website currently in place. Digital images, audio and video of science-related materials will be added to this website, and these “virtual field trips” will be freely available to anyone with Internet access. In addition, our team of K-12 teachers will create lesson plans to accompany the materials, so that they can be easily integrated into curricula at all levels. Though the educational focus of the project is currently on elementary and secondary education, we are eager to make it relevant to higher education, and to researchers as well.