This year’s conference has a new format including three conference sessions, a brunch, and a no-host social event following the sessions at a local brew pub. Also new at this conference is a “Learning Walk” that offers teachers an opportunity to share their successes with colleagues. Click here to learn the criteria and how to submit an entry to the Learning Walk.

Interested exhibitors should contact David Nieslanik (nies.teach@verizon.net) or click here for a conference exhibitor form.

For further information, contact conference chair Gail Vander Heide (gail@vanderheides.com) or OCSS president Judy Lowery (lowerwood@verizon.net). Watch this space for the conference registration form later this summer.

Click here to read Ms. Lowery’s testimony.

Click here for related Oregonian article

OCSS’s spring conference April 26 and 27, set in the beautiful Bend area at the Riverhouse Resort, was a success. Our numbers may have been small, but the quality of the presentations was fantastic and exemplified the theme of “Where’s Oregon? Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow!” very well. We were privileged to have our own Dr. Gayle Thieman open the conference with greetings from NCSS. As president she delivered an address that clearly stated the position of our national organization and asked all who attended to become active in their own way to bring social studies to the forefront of education in Oregon. We were also very fortunate to have as our keynote speaker Ellen Waterston a Bend area poet/writer and one of the board members of Oregon 150. She gave a beautiful ‘Oregon Story’ of her own and an overview of what the Oregon 150 celebration is all about.

Chairman Gail VanderHeide did a wonderful job of securing workshop presenters who worked with attendees on History Day and GIS in the classroom. These sessions were well attended and enjoyed by all. One of the GPS short sessions had attendees working on a scavenger hunt. The GIS workshop included the use of computers and mapping skills. History Day was also well received and drew attention to one of the strong social studies strands and how to include history in a meaningful way in the classroom.

Other sessions included one in economics through the eyes of a ‘chocolate cookie’ as well as some wonderful ideas to teach mapping skills in the elementary grades. One of the outstanding sessions was the Sunday morning presentation from Oregon 150. President Judy Lowery was able to launch Oregon 150 with some of her pre service teachers who have supplied lesson ideas for the state’s web site. One of those teachers was able to attend and bring his unit to the conference. Susanne Smith of the Department of Education and Aili Scheiner of Oregon 150 presented the overview of what the Oregon Story will look like. OCSS has a link to their web site and we encourage you all to ask your students and yourselves to write your own Oregon Story and submit as well as a lesson plan for as many grade levels that you are able to be placed on the web site. Oregon’s official celebration will begin this coming September and conclude in the fall of 2009, the official year of statehood.

OCSS members and social studies educators across the state are invited to a celebration of life service for Christine Allen, who passed away suddenly on April 8, 2008 at Providence Hospital in Everett, Washington. The service will be held at St. Bartholomew’s Episcopal Church, 11265 SW Cabot St. Beaverton, Oregon at 2:00 PM on April 22nd, 2008.

In lieu of flowers the family has asked for donations to the “Friends of Sabeel” (a Palestinian/Christian Peace Program) P.O. Box 220112, Milwaukie, OR 97269.

The National Council for the Social Studies is also accepting contributions to sponsor a $2500 NCSS Christa McAuliffe Award in Christine’s honor. Your contributions may be sent to NCSS (8555 Sixteenth St. Suite 500, Silver Spring, MD 20910) marked "for Christa McAuliffe award in honor of Christine Allen."

The Christa McAuliffe Reach for the Stars Award was established in 1986 to assist classroom teachers in developing and implementing innovative social studies teaching strategies, activities, and citizenship projects with their students. The award serves to help social studies educators achieve a dream that under ordinary circumstances would not be fulfilled. Christine was an ardent supporter of FASSE and the McAuliffe award for many years.

Shortly after Christine was born in Washington in 1946, her family moved to Oregon. Christine attended grade school in Canyon City, Oregon, graduated from High School in Hood River, Oregon and received her Bachelor’s Degree from Willamette University in Salem, Oregon. She did graduate work at Ohio State University, Seaton Hall, Yale University and Portland State University.

Christine taught a variety of courses in the Social Sciences in the Salem-Keizer School District for 32 years. Her passion was global studies and during her career she developed a number of special school curricula. After retiring from the classroom in 1999, she started a consulting business and continued to write curricula for a variety of educational media including Web Based Curriculum Design for Global Issues and Economics, Web Lessons for PBS Program “Avoiding Armageddon”, for PBS Washington Week on the Economy and the United Nations, for PBS Newshour: “Using the Newshour Program: Analyzing the News Events”, and for WETA PBS Program “A Force More Powerful: A Century of Non Violent Conflict”.

Christine was also active in the Oregon High School International Relations League Model United Nations program for over 33 years. She served as the State Secretariat Advisor, wrote the Advisor's Manual, developed program curriculum, and organized the statewide programs. Under her guidance the program grew from a few Salem area high schools to over 41 Oregon and Southwest Washington with more than 1500 students.

She was a member of National Council for the Social Studies and a charter member of Willamette Valley and Oregon Councils for the Social Studies, served on the boards of directors for each, and as the WVCSS President in 1979. She served in the House of Delegates, as the Chair of the Steering Committee, and as an officer of the Social Studies Supervisors Board of Directors. At the time of her death, she was serving on the NCSS House of Delegates Steering Committee and was immediate past president of the Oregon Council for the Social Studies.

Christine traveled extensively, including a summer in Pakistan on a Fulbright Scholarship, a Field Study Travel Program to China for Yale University, a NEH Arabic Language and Culture Institute in Jordan, Syria, the West Bank and Israel and South Korea as part of a seminar program. The only places on her wish list she didn’t get to were South Africa and Russia.

Ms. Allen is survived by her father, Rev. Albert E. Allen, her brothers Warner Allen, Rev. Mark Allen, her sisters Rev. Mary Allen, Elizabeth Allen, and Rosemary Helou and numerous nieces and nephews.

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