Grants for Rural Schools for History Textbooks

Rural school officials can apply for funds to purchase classroom sets of Montana: A History of Our Home, the new fourth-grade student textbook published by the Montana Historical Society.

The 96-page textbook offers a quick tour through 13,000 years of Montana history. Students will learn about Montana’s 12 tribal nations and seven reservations; the immigrants who moved to Montana in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries; and the trapping, mining, logging, farming, and ranching industries that drew them to the Treasure State. The book also introduces students to amazing Montanans from Northern Cheyenne Chief Dull Knife to photographer Evelyn Cameron. 

The sturdy, hardback textbook with library binding is accompanied by a detailed, activity-filled, 320-page teacher’s guide. You can download and preview both the student book and the teacher’s guide here.

“The material is aligned to Montana’s new social studies standards, which require students to “explain how Montana has changed over time given its cultural diversity and how this history impacts the present,” said Martha Kohl, the MTHS Outreach and Information program manager. “It also helps students investigate the physical, political, and cultural characteristics of places, regions, and people in Montana.”

The interdisciplinary lessons also align to the ELA, math, and art standards as well as the Seven Essential Understandings Regarding Montana Indians.

Thanks to a grant from the Steele-Reese Foundation, a charitable trust committed to supporting rural communities, schools more than 40 miles from an urban center (defined as Billings, Bozeman, Butte, Great Falls, Helena, Kalispell, and Missoula) are eligible to apply for funds to reimburse the cost of purchasing textbooks. The school will be required to pay for shipping to their school from Helena.

Selected schools will be required to submit receipts showing their purchase to the Montana Historical Society for reimbursement.

To apply, school officials need to complete the application by midnight, Aug. 31. MTHS will review applications and announce decisions by Sept. 12. If there are more requests than can be fulfilled, MTHS will give preference to small schools (measured by the number of fourth-grade students attending the school) to make sure that the most rural schools are served first. A secondary criterion will be how many hours the teacher will dedicate to Montana history.

For more info contact Kohl at 406-444-4740 or mkohl@mt.gov.