Topics Related to Education

In the 40-year history of National History Day (NHD) competition in North Carolina, never has there been a season like this one. Only two of the seven regional competitions to select participants in the state competition had taken place when the pandemic struck. Many students had spent the year preparing for the contest, held annually at the Museum of History in Raleigh. With stay-at-home orders, most academic contests and extracurricular activities were canceled. All those performances, exhibits, documentaries, papers and websites might have been created for naught. 

EDENTON – A recent grant from the National Park Service African American Civil Rights Grant Fund will help tell a more complete story of Edenton’s recent past. The home of Civil Rights activist Golden Frinks has recently been acquired by the N.C. Department of Natural and Cultural Resources for use as an interpretive space for sharing the stories of struggle and triumph in the fight for equal rights in eastern North Carolina.

While public operations at Dept. of Natural and Cultural Resources institutions remain temporarily suspended, many of our engaging programs and resources can be experienced online.

NCLearn @ Home (www.ncdcr.gov/nclearn@home) is a new website designed to gather online content and educational resources into one place for teachers, students, parents, and anyone needing enriching experiences, regardless of their location.

Not blossoms but bullets came to the farms and plantations of North Carolina’s coastal plain during the Battle of Bentonville March 19-21, 1865. The fighting raged just yards from the home of John and Amy Harper, and Union forces made their house a hospital. The home and plantation of their neighbor Willis Cole were destroyed in this largest battle ever fought in North Carolina.

Spring is almost here and for generations that has meant preparing the fields and planting crops. Aycock Birthplace State Historic Site will showcase some of the workings of a late 1870s farm on Wednesday, March 4. The site will demonstrate some of the skills taught in an 1800s classroom on Wednesday, March 11. The free family-friendly “Traveling Through Time” programs will run 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. Admission is $2 for each. 

Get out around town to see some local Kinston landscapes with new insights during the CSS Neuse fifth anniversary celebration Saturday, March 7, 9 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. A tour of the museum, two battlefield tours and a living history demonstration will make for a day of fun and facts. The cost is $20, and lunch will be on your own at Kings Restsurant. Preregistration is required and limited to 30 people. 

Do you love learning about your local area,” asks intern Samantha Reddick. “We will have reenactors demonstrate what was happening in Kinston during the Civil War.” 

Programs celebrating women’s history will be offered at venues of the North Carolina Department of Natural and Cultural Resources in March. This month continues the department’s celebration of women’s fight for suffrage and equality, with the theme, “She Changed the World: North Carolina Women Breaking Barriers.” The commemoration of the 100th anniversary of women’s suffrage from March 2019 to November 2020 will expand on contributions of North Carolina women to the state and nation.

North Carolina high school students from 25 counties across the state will take the stage on Saturday, Feb. 22, in Greensboro, to compete in the annual statewide Poetry Out Loud competition.

Thirty-five schools are sending students to compete in Poetry Out Loud, which is funded by the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) in partnership with the Poetry Foundation and the North Carolina Arts Council. The event is free and open to the public.

Today marks the one-year anniversary of the official induction of Jaki Shelton Green as North Carolina’s first African American poet laureate.

The N.C. African American Heritage Commission (AAHC), a division of the N.C. Department of Natural and Cultural Resources, has created a new traveling exhibit featuring sites important to, and personal memories about, African American travel during the “Jim Crow” era of legal segregation. 

The exhibit will be on display at the International Civil Rights Center & Museum in Greensboro from March 3-April 22 and the Hayti Heritage Center in Durham from March 14-April 6.