Nicholas Dembowski

Dembowski’s innovative teaching idea, “Hidden History in Plain Sight,” is centered on a large student-built relief map of their New York City neighborhood to use as a tool for year-long teaching and learning. The map will allow students to synthesize science and social studies knowledge in a way that shows how both shaped the development of New York. For example, the students will use the map to show and explain how geological landforms created certain ecosystems, which led to human settlement. They will also see how geography influenced important historical events. The idea is to make social studies and science learning more powerful by seeing the relationship between them in an integrated hands-on and technology-infused project. In studying the development of their neighborhood as a microcosm of the state, the project aims to make abstract concepts real to students by putting them in the familiar context of their own neighborhood.