Lewis-Houghton Civics and Democracy Initiative

Overview

The purpose of this notice is to identify awardee organizations that will design and implement digitally-enabled educational products in which the Library’s music or creative arts-focused primary sources and other online materials are central to teaching and learning. 

Awards made under Lewis-Houghton Civics and Democracy Initiative must include rights-free materials from the Library’s vast collections of music and creative arts-related resources to develop curriculum, teaching materials, and tools for history, civic and democracy instruction targeted toward high school students. 

Applicants may propose projects geared toward secondary students, that use the Library of Congress’s vast collections of music or creative arts-related materials housed in the Music Division, the American Folklife Center, the Gershwin Prize site, and other divisions. Examples of fundable projects include, but are not limited to: 

• Augmenting an already-existing civics curriculum with music or creative arts-related Library of Congress primary sources; 
• Augmenting an already-existing music curriculum with Library of Congress primary sources; 
• Creating music or creative arts-focused inquiry and discovery kits for use by young visitors to the Library; 
• Developing a podcast series that explores democracy through the lens of the history and context of music available in the Library’s collections; 
• Initiating face-to-face or virtual encounters between secondary students and accomplished musicians (including perhaps Gershwin Prize winners) to discuss the components and meaning of historical musical pieces from the Library’s collections; 
• Creating music tutorials for secondary students using Library of Congress collections; 
• Guiding students as they embed sources from the Library’s collections into original creative works; 
• Gathering secondary teachers to write lesson plans that explore the role of music in history and civic movements; 
• Combining music and creative works from a targeted community with existing Library collection materials, and creating associated curricular materials to help broaden representation; 
• Packaging items from two or more collections to provide curricular materials that present a retrospective of various genres of music and their historical and cultural connections to one another; 
• Building an online timeline of landmark historical periods and movements with corresponding music; and 
• Programming an engaging civics-related app or online interactive that supports student analysis of music or creative arts-related primary sources.

Successful proposals will describe feasible and impactful project ideas to be implemented by organizations with a track record of successfully delivering similar musically or creative artsfocused educational products, materials and programming that include an emphasis on the cultural and historical role that music and creative arts have played in civic life and the development of our democratic society. 

Successful applicants will exhibit current partnerships with educational and or community organizations, such as K-12 school systems, universities, non-profits, cultural institutions, etc., that can support project creation, dissemination and professional development for teachers who will embed award products to their instruction.

ASU may submit only one (1) application per department to the sponsoring organization. This opportunity is first come, first served. No LS Cover Page is requested; please complete the required information as part of the InfoReady application.

Period of Performance 12 months

Expected Start Date: October 1, 2023

Number of Awards: up to six cooperative agreement awards