Resources for Teachers

Book a Speaker

Speakers Bureau

ORIAS Speakers Bureau

The ORIAS Speakers Bureau is a cohort of graduate students who offer 45-minute interactive presentations specifically geared to students from middle school to community college. Each presentation models important skills, such as analysis of texts and use of evidence to build an argument, while also...

Teaching Materials

Content & Lessons

More than Tribute: Foreign Relations in Early Modern East Asia

China, Japan, Korea, and Vietnam interacted extensively with one another during the 15th - 17th centuries. Contrary to the simplified notion of a "tributary system" the polities of the region (and beyond) had complex, adaptable, multi-layered relations. Exploring these interactions can help us...

Teaching about Art and Composite Culture in South Asian History

Use these visual analysis techniques and annotated images to teach about composite cultures in South Asian history.

What Do Historians Do?

Listen to interviews with six different historians. They describe what they love about history, how they define history, details about their job, and how the study of history can change people's lives.

Societies of the Americas

Archaeological evidence suggests that Indigenous peoples have been living in this hemisphere for at least 15,000 years. More recent DNA evidence indicates an even longer period of 20,000 years. By either metric, Indigenous communities were already here when the last glaciation ended, changing the...

Architecture and Sacred Spaces in Shinto

Shinto - "the way of the kami" - is deeply rooted in pre-historic Japanese religious and agricultural practices. The term kami can refer to Japanese mythological deities, but also can mean divinity manifested in natural objects, places, animals, and even human beings. Shinto rituals and...

Mithila Painting: Folk Art of India

Why Study Mithila Painting? This three-week unit invites students to understand and make connections with cultures in rural North India via traditions of ritual painting that have been practiced since ancient times - the exact point of origin is unknown. They will learn that India's great Hindu...

Monomyth: Hero's Journey Project

Joseph Campbell's Monomyth, developed in Hero With A Thousand Faces, describes the common heroic narrative in which a heroic protagonist sets out, has transformative adventures, and returns home. It is a useful formula for comparing literary traditions across time and culture. Here, ORIAS provides...

The Travels of Ibn Battuta

Welcome to this tour of Ibn Battuta's medieval travels! You will be following in the footsteps of this famous 14th century Muslim traveler, exploring the places he visited and the people he encountered. To help you learn more about his adventures there will be images of the people and places he saw...

Workshops

Workshops and Working Groups

Investigating Angkor

What can history and archaeology teach us about how human societies interact with each other and with the environment? How can investigating the past help us understand modern identities and ask better questions about our own futures as we now face shifts in our climate and environment?...

Summer Program: Climate Change Economics

Climate Change Economics

Climate change is visibly affecting earth's natural systems and these changes are beginning to have wide-ranging impacts at the local, national, and global levels. This week-long program explores the causes, effects, and potential responses to climate change...Read more about Summer Program: Climate Change Economics

The Other Europe

Teacher-created lessons about Eastern Europe and Russia.
World History textbooks and courses often focus on Western European events and perspectives in historical narratives about Europe. This hinders student understanding of major historical processes: the end of the Roman Empire, the...Read more about The Other Europe

Global Views of COVID 19

Recorded Presentations about COVID in Different Parts of the World

ORIAS created the Global Views of COVID 19 webinar series to help teachers deepen their understanding of the unfolding pandemic. We know that even as educators are grappling with the personal and...Read more about Global Views of COVID 19

How to Read a Film

Resources from Film Workshops at BAMPFA

Consider the importance of moving images in the lives of today's students. Between TV, film, and social media, the moving image is an indispensible part of learning and communicating information (and mis-information). How do film-...Read more about How to Read a Film

How To Read an Object

Teach students how to analyze artifacts.

Where does the information in social studies textbooks come from? And how can educators introduce students to the inquiry-based skills that produce our understandings of the past? How to Read an Object was a set of...Read more about How To Read an Object

Lessons from Morocco

Lessons about Jewish-Muslim Coexistence in Morocco

In the summer of 2017, the UC Berkeley Center for Middle East Studies led a group of 15 California teachers on a Fulbright-Hays Group Projects Abroad study program in Morocco. Participants learned about the history and current...Read more about Lessons from Morocco

K-12 Programs

K-12 Summer Institutes

Infrastructure and Society

Summer Institute for k-12 Teachers June 23 - 26, 2025

"...infrastructures are built networks that facilitate the flow of goods, people, or ideas and allow for their exchange over space."

(Larkin 2013, as quoted in Appel, Anand, and Gupta 2018)...Read more about Infrastructure and Society

Climate and Migration

Summer Institute for k-12 Teachers June 24 - 26, 2024

Migration is a core part of the human experience and one of our oldest tools to respond to environmental changes. But current news about both climate change and migration can be panic-inducing. This summer institute for k-12 teachers explores...Read more about Climate and Migration

The World As It Could Be

Speculative Fiction from around the World Summer Institute for k-12 Teachers June 21 - 23, 2023

Speculative fiction includes a wide range of genres: science fiction, fantasy, African- and AfroFuturism, dystopian fiction, climate fiction, and more. All of these genres use different...Read more about The World As It Could Be

The World in Film

Summer Institute for k-12 Teachers

June 22 - 24, 2022

Film is a powerful medium. For many young people today, film and video are the primary medium for acquiring information, understanding the world, and communicating ideas. The 2022 ORIAS Summer...Read more about The World in Film

The Little Ice Age

Summer Institute for k-12 Teachers

June 21 - 25, 2021

10:00 AM - 12:00 PM (PDT) each day via Zoom

What role can humanities and social science classes play in addressing modern climate change?...Read more about The Little Ice Age

Propaganda

Summer Institute for k-12 Teachers

June 22 - 26, 2020

5 online sessions, see schedule below

Each session will include a presentation by a scholar-expert, participant...Read more about Propaganda

Body & Identity

Summer Institute for k-12 Teachers

June 26 - 28, 2019

California's 2011 FAIR Education Act changed the state's education code to include the Fair, Accurate, Inclusive, and Respectful portrayal of the contributions and experiences of people with...Read more about Body & Identity

Architecture: Space, Power, and Community

Summer Institute for k-12 Teachers

June 25 - 27, 2018

The 2018 Summer Institute for k-12 teachers will explore the interplay between built spaces, individuals, communities, and institutions. Our program will begin with recent research into how the...Read more about Architecture: Space, Power, and Community

The View from the Sea: Oceans in World History

Summer Institute for k-12 Educators

June 26 – 28, 2017

World History courses often begin with a survey of river-basin societies, exploring the connection between agricultural surplus, irrigation projects, and centralizing power. Oceans and seas are...Read more about The View from the Sea: Oceans in World History

Pop Culture in World History

Modern technologies enable young students to observe and - in some ways - participate in pop culture from around the world. What is pop culture and where does it come from? How have technological changes altered the production and spread of popular culture? Is modern pop culture actually more...Read more about Pop Culture in World History

The World Through Literature

July 20 - 22, 2015

Significant stories have been traded and transformed along trade routes as long as people have gathered together — exploring the human condition, speculating on “other” peoples, and defining social history. The...Read more about The World Through Literature

Foodways in World History

How has the history of human society been driven by food and agriculture? Watch the full set of lectures from this Summer Institute.Read more about Foodways in World History

The Role of Travelers in World History

Travelers’ tales are older than writing itself and have lost little of their popularity over time. For historians, travelers offer unique insights into cross-cultural exchange, as well as interpretive challenges.

This armchair journey with area scholars considered the...Read more about The Role of Travelers in World History

The Role of Technology in Shaping Human History

How have societies historically viewed the role of information technology from cuneiform tablets to social media? What conditions fostered innovation in industrial and military technology and what were the social consequences? Why did technological innovations happen in one place and not another...Read more about The Role of Technology in Shaping Human History

Absent Voices - Everyday Life in World History

History courses are peopled with the prestigious, the wealthy, the powerful. What about the vast majority of humanity - women, people living outside the urban centers, everyday workers - whose daily lives are mostly absent from the narrative we often teach? The 2011 Summer Institute focused on...Read more about Absent Voices - Everyday Life in World History

Causes and Consequences of Imperialism

Empire building has been a prominent thread in human history since ancient times. Even in the largely de-colonized modern world, legacies of 19th century imperialism continue to profoundly shape individual identity and international relations across the globe. The 2010 K-12 and community...Read more about Causes and Consequences of Imperialism

Visible Power - Art in National Life

Art production for public display has been a component of every historical era. This institute explored ways visual arts can be interpreted and used to teach major themes in World History. Participants explored numerous interpretations of artworks, learning how to analyze pieces as:...Read more about Visible Power - Art in National Life

CC Programs

Past Community College Summer Institutes

The State and the Information Economy

Summer Institute for Community College Instructors May 31 - June 1, 2024

How does the state know itself and the world in which it operates? This summer institute will explore the ways in which states generate and use information. How do states produce information about themselves, collect...Read more about The State and the Information Economy

Crime and Punishment

The Creation and Transformation of Legal Regimes Summer Institute for Community College Instructors June 2 - 3, 2023

Over the past five centuries, expanding imperial ventures, human migrations, and emerging technologies created challenges to governance. As increasing numbers of...Read more about Crime and Punishment

Luxury, Land, Labor

Summer Institute for Community College Instructors June 3 - 4, 2022

What are the characteristics, sources, and institutional foundations of wealth across time and place? What can we understand about labor, resources, power, and inequality through the exploration of wealth? The 2022 summer...Read more about Luxury, Land, Labor

UNFREE: Coerced labor across time and place

Summer Institute for Community College Instructors

June 2 - 4, 2021

9:00 AM to 12:30 PM (PDT) each day via Zoom

In the US, the ongoing conversation about Black Lives draws...Read more about UNFREE: Coerced labor across time and place

People Power

Summer Institute for Community College Instructors

May/June, 2020

4 online sessions: 5/29, 5/30, 6/5, 6/6

How do we interpret narratives about mass movements in the past? And how does that...Read more about People Power

The Global Rise of National Populism

Summer Institute for Community College Instructors

May 31 - June 1, 2019

News of the past few years has increasingly featured accounts of rising national populism in the form of public demonstrations, rhetoric, political leadership, public rhetoric,...Read more about The Global Rise of National Populism

Migration & Diaspora

Summer Institute for Community College Teachers

May 31 - June 2, 2018

The 2018 Summer Institute for Community College instructors will consider migration and diaspora from the standpoints of wide-ranging disciplines, including history, anthropology,...Read more about Migration & Diaspora

Environmental History

Summer Institute for Community College Educators

June 2 - 3, 2017

“The story of world history, if it is to be balanced and accurate, will inevitably consider the natural environment and the myriad ways in which it has both affected and been...Read more about Environmental History

Women in World History

2016 Summer Institute for Community College Instructors

How would your curriculum change if your default historical subjects were women, rather than men?

How would you assess the importance of the agricultural revolution...Read more about Women in World History

World History Working Group

Community College Summer Institutes originated from the World History Working Group, which met regularly from 2011 to 2015. The current annual workshops are designed for community college and AP-level instructors who teach World History, Global...Read more about World History Working Group