Student Projects
Faculty and students in History explore the past from a variety of angles, often combining these with hand-on, applied, or digital components. Here are some examples of the kind of projects undergraduate and graduate students might pursue in courses in History. Our graduate students often serve as Teaching Assistants in undergraduate courses, so even graduate students can be involved in projects designed for undergraduates.
Important Women in History
In Spring 2021, ISU History major Jasmine Housman designed hallway posters highlighting important women in history.
Early Modern and Modern Still Lifes
Students in History 1101 examine the emergence of still life painting as an art form as a response to the reformation. Students then have an opportunity to create their own still life art. In recent years, the course professor has had students 3-D print objects from Renaissance still life paintings to create their own 3-D modern still-life collages.
Early Modern and Modern Still Lifes
Middle East Facts
To develop awareness about the culture and history of the Middle East, students in HIST 3354 Modern Middle East created list of Middle East Facts, which was distributed around the ISU campus and published in the local newspaper.
Idaho in the Great War
Students in HIST 2291 The Historian’s Craft contributed to a semester-long collaborative research project on Idaho in the First World War. This project coincided with the 100-year anniversary of the United States’ entry into the war, and asked students to consider Idaho’s role in the war, local perceptions of the global conflict, and Pocatellans’ everyday experiences during this transformative event. Students engaged with a variety of primary and secondary sources, taking advantage of the Oboler Library special collections as well as a variety of digitized documents.
Idaho Suffragettes
Students in HIST 4425 Women in the North American West researched and wrote biographies Idaho suffragists, which were published on the website Women and Social Movements in the United States.
Global Idaho Podcast
Graduate students in History 6623 Global Idaho researched, wrote, and produced a six-part series on immigration and DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals) in Idaho. The entire series is freely available through SoundCloud.
Global Idaho
Japanese American Citizens League Collection, Special Collections and Archives, Eli M. Oboler Library, Idaho State University
A History of Japanese Americans in Southeast Idaho
History graduate students in spring 2020 built and published the SE Idaho Nikkei Project to promote historical understanding of Japanese Americans in our region since the late 1800s. "A History of Japanese Americans in Southeast Idaho" is available at https://sites.google.com/isu.edu/seidaho-nikkei-project/home. This website includes blogs authored by students, records of the recently processed JACL Collection at the ISU Library, oral history interviews, lesson plans for teachers, an interactive bibliography for further research, and much more. Our students and faculty collaborated with the Pocatello-Blackfoot Chapter of the Japanese American Citizens' League and the ISU Library Special Collections and Archives to build this public resource.
Global Idaho Podcast
In Spring 2018, graduate students in the History MA program released the complete remastered Season 1 of the Global Idaho Podcast. Season 1 focuses on DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals) and immigration reform in southeastern Idaho. The podcast counters deeply rooted narratives and hegemonic structures that exclude and discount the contributions of immigrants to Idahoan history.
Subscribe and listen today. Global Idaho is available on iTunes and Soundcloud.
