Land, Leadership, and Legacy: George Washington and Montana Identity Teacher Institute
August 5 (Helena) OR August 7 (Billings)
At this FREE workshop, teachers will have the opportunity to hear from historical scholars about George Washington’s agricultural leadership, the 1880 visit by Chief Plenty Coups to Mount Vernon, and the modern-day connection to Montana’s apple orchards. Attendees will also have the opportunity to learn the importance of Indigenous perspectives in shaping regional identity and history. Educators will walk away with ready-to-use resources and insights to help students think critically about the connections between the land, leadership, and legacy of George Washington and make meaningful connections to Montana’s history and the present day.
Attendees earn 6 OPI Renewal Units and MUST teach in a formal K-12 classroom or school setting.
Learn more and find link to register:
Building Wilderness Conservation Lesson Plans: A Weekend Workshop at Smoke’s Barn
Dates: September 12 & 13, 2026 (Saturday and Sunday) from 10am-4pm each day
Location: Smoke Elser’s Barn @ 3800 Rattlesnake Drive in Missoula, Montana
Cost: Free! A $500 reimbursement will be paid to each participant who completes the entire involvement experience after the final lesson plan is submitted to our Educational Administration at MCE. Lunch and snacks (Saturday and Sunday) and dinner Saturday will be provided.
Renewal Units: 12
Hosted by Montana Conservation Elders and Teaching Primary Sources of the Library of Congress.
This weekend workshop brings together educators and leaders from Montana’s wilderness and conservation community (including author Rick Bass and legendary packer Smoke Elser) to collaboratively create high-quality, place-based lesson plans and classroom activities.
Selected participants will learn to access and use primary sources and educational materials from the previously created Montana Conservation Elders Educational Materials, Library of Congress, University of Montana Special Collections, Montana Historical Society, The National Archives, Arthur Carhart Foundation, and the Montana History Portal (which will offer a mini-workshop during the conference).
Qualified Applicants are: K–12 teachers, Tribal colleges, teacher preparation programs, Park Service educators, museum educators, and key stakeholders to work with noted experts to build lessons focused on wilderness conservation and Montana history.
For more information contact Cheryl Hughes / cherylhug@gmail.com / 406-240-4380
Historical Thinking through Student-Driven Research
August 11-12, Great Falls College-MSU. FREE with TRAVEL STIPEND
Want to engage your class with student-driven research projects using primary sources? Want to promote more historical thinking and critical analysis? Join teachers from across the state as Lynne O’Hara, deputy director of education for National History Day and former Philadelphia public schools social studies teacher, teaches you how to facilitate student research, analyze sources, and think historically. Think of it as a two-day “doing history” bootcamp.
Eligible Applicants:
- Teach 4th-12th grade in Montana
- Can commit to teaching student-driven historical research projects using primary sources in the 2026-2056 school year
- Can commit to attending BOTH days of the August 11-12 summer institute from 9 am to 4 pm at Great Falls College-MSU.
Successful Applicants will receive:
- Meals during the workshop
- Lodging
- Travel stipends
- 12 OPI renewal units
Learn more and find link to apply here.
MentorMT Is Hiring Mentors
MentorMT offers grade- and subject-aligned mentoring for new or underprepared rural teachers, helping them build effective pedagogy and content knowledge in their grade level and discipline. Over 100 K-12 teachers will be matched with mentors next year.
The ideal mentor is an active (or eligible retired) Montana K-12 teacher with:
- expertise in content and pedagogy for your grade/subject
- 5+ years of experience in teaching or special services
- Experience with and empathy toward rural education (teachers, students, schools, communities, & resources)
- Selection and matching criteria include subject-area and grade-band compatibility, geographic location, school type, and unique applicant skills and experiences
Does this describe you? Learn more and apply today!
APPLICATION DEADLINE: Friday, June 5, 2026.
And Speaking of Mentoring...
Don't forget to complete our year-end survey to share your favorite strategies and lessons with the Teaching Montana History community (and maybe win a prize.)
Glacier National Park’s fifty-mile-long Going-to-the-Sun Road is known for its breathtaking views. Congress appropriated the first funds to build the “Transmountain Highway” in 1921. Constructing a road over such mountainous terrain presented a variety of unique challenges including sheer cliffs, a short construction season, and sixty-foot snow drifts. More than ten years later the first automobile crossed the park’s new Transmountain Highway in October 1932.
In 1876–1877, the US military targeted the Lakota (Sioux), Tsetsėhesėstȧhase naa Suhtaio (Northern Cheyenne), and Hinono'ei (Arapaho), who remained on unceded hunting grounds rather than moving to reservations. The tribes fought back, most famously winning a battle at Little Bighorn against Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer and his troops on June 25–26, 1876. Custer’s name became a rallying cry for those seeking to avenge the rout.
Hopeful miners flocked to Grasshopper Creek in 1862, and Bannack, Montana’s first boom town, sprang to life. Briefly named Montana’s territorial capital, Bannack became a near ghost town after gold was discovered at Virginia City. Quartz mining rebounded in the 1870s, and Bannack served as the Beaverhead County seat until 1881. In 1954, the State of Montana acquired most of the town and it became a state park.
Charlie Russell, Montana’s most beloved artist, and his wife Nancy built their modest frame house in Great Falls in 1900. Three years later, they constructed Charlie’s log studio. Nancy noted that Charlie “loved that . . . building more than any other place on earth and never finished a painting anywhere else.”
Pictograph, Middle, and Ghost Caves are exceptional for the rare preservation of perishable items and for their stunning art. Early inhabitants painted more than one hundred images on the walls, including one more than two-thousand years old. Artifacts offer evidence of the extensive Indigenous trade network. They include the fragment of a 1,370-year-old coiled basket, which resembles those made in the Great Basin, and a thong necklace strung with Pacific shell beads.
Lewis and Clark Caverns, one of the largest and most remarkable caves in the Northern Rockies, became Montana’s first state park in 1937. Members of the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC)—a Depression era jobs program—developed into the site we know today. The CCC cleaned and surveyed the caves, blasted a 538-foot exit tunnel, installed electric lighting, and built an access road, a Rustic-style headquarters building, a visitors’ center, and a stone latrine.
When the first train arrived in Scobey, the two-story, Western False Front–style Commercial Hotel—today the south half of the courthouse—was the new townsite’s largest building. After 1915, gambling, dog fighting, drinking, and prostitution became central to the hotel’s business model. In 1920, county officials purchased the hotel for use as a courthouse. It is Montana’s last functioning false-front courthouse and perhaps the only bordello converted to government use.