UTRGV project to help Valley teachers expand on local history

Two University of Texas Rio Grande Valley professors have received a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities for a project focused on how to implement Rio Grande Valley history into elementary classrooms.

The NEH grant, awarded to Dr. J. Joy Esquierdo, director of the UTRGV Center for Bilingual Studies and professor for Bilingual and Literacy Studies, and Dr. Stephanie Alvarez, director of the UTRGV Center for Mexican American Studies and associate professor for Mexican American Studies, for their project, “Social Studies through Authentic and Relevant Content: Promoting Humanities Learning in Elementary Schools.”

The project aims to provide opportunity and resources for kindergarten through fifth-grade teachers to form appropriate grade-level curricula that implement local and regional history, creating culturally relevant social studies content for students in both English and Spanish.

Project “SSTARC” was granted $99,991 for the two-year collaboration between the Center for Bilingual Studies, Center for Mexican American Studies and two local school districts – Pharr-San Juan-Alamo Independent School District and Harlingen Consolidated Independent School District.