Understanding Sacrifice Wins National Award
The Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media (CHNM), National History Day (NHD), and the American Battle Monuments Commission (ABMC) are pleased to announce that the web project, Understanding Sacrifice, won first place in the Digital Media category for the National Association for Interpretation (NAI) 2016 Interpretative Media Awards.
Understanding Sacrifice is an 18-month professional development program for middle- and high-school teachers. Working with the team from NHD and CHNM, 18 teachers create free, interdisciplinary lessons to share with other educators each year. The goal is to bring ABMC resources into classrooms to help students better understand the service, experience, and sacrifice of American service members during World War II.
To help meet this goal, the Understanding Sacrifice website provides access to lesson plans, primary source materials, videos, and stories of fallen service members who are buried or memorialized at ABMC cemeteries. The intended audience is teachers, students, and others interested in military history.
Professionals in the field of interpretation and media development judged the entries according to the following criteria:
- The entry exhibits outstanding application of interpretive principles.
- The entry communicates its intended message most effectively and in an appropriate manner.
- The entry engages users through effective use of art and technology.
The NAI judges noted: ““This is a thought-provoking website which demonstrates the ways in which educators and interpreters can collaborate to produce outstanding and complex learning opportunities for students from apparently static monuments.”
Applications are now being accepted for next year’s Understanding Sacrifice program, World War II in the Pacific. Teachers will visit San Francisco [CA], Honolulu [HI], and the Philippines in summer 2017. Please visit http://abmceducation.org/apply for more information and an application packet. Applications are due September 2, 2016.