The Birmingham-Southern College Department of Education has launched a growing partnership with the Alabama Veterans Memorial Foundation that will benefit teachers across the state.

Over the last year, associate professors of education Dr. Louanne Jacobs and Dr. Kelly Russell developed a series of free lesson plans for fourth through eighth grade students that focus on the War on Terror. The lessons – sponsored by a grant from the Kiwanis Club of Birmingham – are now part of the educational resources that the Alabama Veterans Memorial Foundation offers to all teachers.

The foundation first reached out to BSC through Kiwanis Member and Adjunct Professor Col. Ed Rowe. Connected to BSC through his E-Term course on U.S. National Security, Rowe first approached Dr. Randy Law, professor of history, about the project – a collection of educational resources on the War on Terror for elementary and middle school students.

Law connected Rowe and Tom Martin, president of the Alabama Veterans Memorial Foundation, with Russell to create material for younger age groups, with Law’s research on terrorism serving as a guiding source for the project.

“What we had to do is look at Alabama standards in language arts and social studies that fit the War on Terror,” Jacobs says. “We also had to look at what is developmentally appropriate for children and what were good teaching strategies that fit with literacy strategies and the strategies that historians use to look at events.”

Between Russell’s expertise in child development and Jacob’s in literacy and social studies, the two came together to prepare new and innovative curriculum for teachers to introduce young students to the history surrounding 9/11, conflicts in the Middle East, and other current events.

Jacobs and Russell developed five lessons that work together to study what terrorism is and how it connects to modern history and the lives of Alabamians. The first lesson guides classes to discuss what the term “terrorism” means, providing a foundation for the following lessons on the 9/11 attacks, the role of first responders, and Operation Enduring Freedom.

“There’s not really one definition of terrorism, so we look at how different agencies and scholars define terrorism,” Jacobs says. “Once you get past the first lesson, every lesson has an Alabama connection. It’s important for kids to know that they have a connection to a topic that seems so remote to them.”

In this way, the lessons tie closely to the Alabama Veterans Memorial Park, which honors Alabamians from World War I to the present. The coursework Jacobs and Russell developed includes stories from local newspapers around Alabama that profile veterans, first responders, and those who lost their lives on 9/11 or through other conflicts.

While creating the lessons – which include objectives, timelines, bibliographies with related books, and additional resources, as well as individualized plans for each grade level – Jacobs and Russell also updated the foundation’s other lessons so that they meet the most recent Alabama standards for language arts and social studies.

And the partnership is not over now that the War on Terror lessons are complete and available to teachers. The foundation has received another grant from Kiwanis to promote the curriculum throughout the education community as a resource that is free for all teachers.

“Moving forward, we will continue to help with the lesson plans, and we are putting them in touch with a Birmingham-Southern student who would be able to get the information out,” Russell says.

She sees this partnership as a perfect opportunity for an education or history student to gain experience incorporating new curriculum into the classroom. The ongoing project could potentially turn into a contracted E-Term course that explores how to integrate these new topics into different grade levels, and education students could even bring the topics into their student teaching internships.

Russell also credits the interdisciplinary, interconnected community at the College for the success of the partnership. After all, the project came together because of connections between the history department, education department, and the Birmingham community.

“This wouldn’t have come to be if it weren’t for the fact that during E-Term, people in the community come to teach,” Russell says. “Because Ed teaches his class and is friends with Randy, who sent the project across the quad, he knew we could do this.”

The partnership also reflects what education faculty and students at BSC are committed to as teachers.

“Teachers have so much on their plates already,” Jacobs says. “They now have access to resources that are high quality, engaging, and tied to multiple standards, and something already made that you can then make your own. As we lead lives of significance, it’s our mission to engage with the community in meaningful ways that promotes our intellectual and academic growth as well as supporting our community of teachers and young learners.”

Find the War on Terror lessons here.