IMSAŽ HISTORY TEACHER WINS STATE NSDAR AWARD
For Immediate Release, Press Release
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AURORA – IMSA History teacher Dr. Claiborne "Clay" Skinner of Hinckley was recently named the Illinois State Winner for the 2008 Outstanding Teacher of American History for the National Society of the Daughters of the American Revolution (NSDAR).
Dr. Skinner was nominated by IMSA staff and NSDAR member Laurie Sutherland of Sugar Grove, and his application was endorsed by the Chapter Historian of the Elias Kent Kane Chapter of St. Charles. Dr. Skinner will accept his award during the Illinois NSDAR State Conference on April 26, 2008 in Bloomington. As the Illinois winner, his application is being sent by the State Regent to the NSDAR Historian General in Washington, D.C. for the 2008 National Competition.
Selection criteria for the award included: having an incisive knowledge of American History that he/she readily shares with students; demonstrating the ability to relate history to modern life and events; having high academic standards, requiring excellence at all times from students; and fostering a spirit of patriotism and loyal support of our country and constitutional government.
Skinner, a History/Social Studies teacher at IMSA since 1993, is the curriculum and assessment leader of the History/Social Studies Team. He has recently published The Upper Country: French Enterprise in the Colonial Great Lakes (Johns Hopkins Press). Between 1996 and 2000, he and IMSA students researched and built a 6' x 4' diorama of the Sieur de La Salle's Fort Saint Louis for Starved Rock State Park. Most recently, he and IMSA students are working to identify the battlefields of the first Iroquois invasion of Illinois in 1680.
The internationally recognized Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy® (IMSA) develops creative, ethical leaders in science, technology, engineering and mathematics. As a teaching and learning laboratory created by the State of Illinois, IMSA enrolls academically talented Illinois students (grades 10-12) in its advanced, residential college preparatory program. It also serves thousands of educators and students in Illinois and beyond through innovative instructional programs that foster imagination and inquiry. (www.imsa.edu)