This three year project, sponsored by The National Council for the Social Studies, will teach 24 Middle School teachers from Maryland and District of Columbia the basic concepts of urbanism. The program content will be based upon the integrated study of the major disciplines which are a part of the study of urbanism-sociology, political science, geography and economics. Using this interdisciplinary approach teachers, under the guidance of project staff, will develop, test and compare hypotheses about urbanism through the in- depth study of selected cities. The result of these studies will be the development of activities for use in the middle school classroom which illustrate the application of the scientific method as practiced in the social sciences. During the follow-up phase, in the academic year, the teachers will implement the interdisciplinary program in the schools with the help of the project staff. At the end of the project a book of fifty effective lesson plans for teaching urbanism in the middle school and suggestions on how to use these in in-service activities will have been produced. Matching funds from the school districts involved, the National Council for the Social Studies and the University of Maryland - Baltimore County are equivalent to 47% of the NSF grant.
