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What is a skyscraper? How has skyscraper technology changed American society? In what ways did skyscrapers help define urban culture in the late 19th century?

by Jessica Cilella, Web Editor

These are just a few of the questions 72 educators from across the country explored at CAC this summer during “The American Skyscraper: Transforming Chicago and the Nation,” a workshop made possible through funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH).

The teachers came in two rounds: from July 9-15 we hosted teachers from other states, while local teachers joined us July 23-29. Our education team kept each group of educators engaged for seven days with lectures by local architecture experts, curriculum development projects, readings and most importantly, field studies.

CAC was one of 20 organizations around the country to receive NEH’s prestigious Landmarks of American History and Culture Workshop grant, which gives educators the opportunity to study historic American sites through place-based learning. Teachers invited to the workshops at CAC were selected from a pool of 272 applicants and received stipends for travel and housing.

Angela Dormiani, a high school history teacher from Oklahoma City, said trips to the Harold Washington Library, Fisher Building, Tribune Tower, Federal Center, Reliance Building and other landmarks made her think about ways she could use site visits as teaching opportunities with her students.

“It’s opened my eyes to different resources that I don’t need to pay for, I don’t need to write a grant for,” she said. “I’m thinking of places I can take my kids, to look at how things have changed socially, economically, politically in my city.”

Lisa Quon Heinsen, an instructional intervention coordinator from the Los Angeles area, said she wanted to attend the workshop to learn how to incorporate more architecture into her school’s STEM programming.

“I’m still processing everything because it’s been overwhelming, but in a good sense,” she said. “I’m very appreciative of these type of opportunities for teachers. It reinvigorates us for when we return to the classroom.”

CAC has hosted the workshop for six non-consecutive years. Since the last time teachers made a visit in 2014, a new bus tour was put together that brought this year’s guests through neighborhoods they otherwise wouldn’t have seen, tying in the history of the Great Chicago Fire, the Union Stockyards, the Jane Addams Hull House, the Chicago Defender and more.

“The tour really helped to put all this new information on skyscrapers in context in a much deeper way,” said Jen Masengarb, CAC’s director of interpretation and research.

Jen said she hopes the teachers walked away not only with a better understanding of the development of the skyscraper and how to use architecture as a teaching tool in their classroom, but also knowing that CAC is a valuable resource for educators nationwide.

“Of all the things that I’ve done during my time at CAC, this is one of the most rewarding,” she said. “For a lot of these teachers, Chicago is a very different landscape than their home city. That’s really fun, to see the city through their eyes.”