Innovative new educational resources from UCC inspire secondary school students to learn about Irish history
Secondary school teachers are being provided with resources to inspire their students to learn about Ireland’s history from the Great Famine to the Irish Free State.
Teachers can register to download the free resource packs from UCC’s much anticipated Atlas of the Irish Revolution. The collection of eight teaching units covers a range of topics from the 1845-1922 period.
Sponsored by the College of Arts, Celtic Studies and Social Sciences in UCC and developed by an experienced teacher and historian, the materials present historical content in a stimulating and visual way. The full collection will be available for download in autumn 2017, but a sample pack based on the 1916 Rising can be accessed now at www.theirishrevolution.ie
Dr Donal Ó Drisceoil, one of the Atlas editors, says:
“These maps provide a new perspective on the Irish revolutionary years and, together with the rich images used, will hopefully excite the interest of school students in the history and geography of this formative period.”
The Atlas of the Irish Revolution resource packs for Junior Cycle, Transition Year and Senior Cycle offer unique visual teaching aids. The original maps are complemented by a selection of rare documents and images from the National Library of Ireland and the Irish Examiner archive.
Activity-based lesson plans and student worksheets guide teachers in using the source material to consolidate learning, reinforce key skills and encourage active student participation.
The Atlas of the Irish Revolution, to be published by Cork University Press on September 1st 2017, features contributions from leading national and international scholars and over 300 original maps generated from a wide range of historical data.
For John Crowley, Donal Ó Driscoll, Mike Murphy and John Borgonovo, the editors of the landmark publication, it was important to make the exciting new research accessible to post-primary students to bolster their understanding of the revolutionary years, get them enthused about local and national history, and inspire them to undertake research of their own.
The online resources for schools represent the second of a two-strand Atlas of the Irish Revolution Schools Outreach Programme. The first strand, a twelve panel-travelling exhibition, has visited over 20 post-primary schools in Cork and Kerry during the 2016-2017 academic year.
Margaret Barry, history teacher at Presentation Secondary School in Tralee says: “The maps are wonderful in getting the girls to engage with the reality of the subject. It is very instructive for them to see the events that took place across the country. They often have a tendency to assume that little activity happened outside Dublin and Cork.”
Alison Hegarty, a TY student at St Angela’s College, Cork says that rather than long pages of text, the maps make it easier for visual learners like her to engage with large amounts of information
Further information about the Atlas of the Irish Revolution is available at: https://readymag.com/u54928245/409210/
Dr Helene O’Keeffe
Coordinator, Atlas of the Irish Revolution, Schools Outreach Programme