ACTivate History
Because every community has heroes whose stories deserve to be heard.
Are you a teacher, principal, or educator working with students aged 14-20 and looking for meaningful ways to engage them in real-world learning?
ACTivate History invites your institution to join a groundbreaking educational initiative that connects students with their communities through the power of oral history.
Our project engages students in documenting the untold stories of local activists and civic leaders, creating both meaningful learning experiences and a lasting global archive of social change.
Help us build a comprehensive global archive of civic engagement stories — preserving local voices that might otherwise be lost to time.
Contact us to learn how your institution can join this growing network of schools and educational institutions documenting the grassroots stories that shape our world.
Ready to activate history in your classroom?
ACTivate History is an educational initiative that engages students with activism and civic participation through storytelling and historical inquiry.
It invites students to interview older family or community members involved in activism and to contribute these stories to a growing global archive on civic engagement.
The project uses oral history as a powerful educational tool to help students explore, document, and preserve civic narratives from their communities.
It has three core goals:
- Preserve local civic memory by guiding students to document the experiences of activists in their communities — particularly those whose contributions may otherwise be forgotten.
- Deepen students’ understanding of civic life, activism, and history by engaging them in real-world, qualitative research.
- Build a global archive of personal narratives that humanize and contextualize civic movements from the last 50 years.
What will students do?
Students participate in approximately three hours of online training, including tutorials on youth activism, the history of activism, and oral history methodology. With additional 2–3 teaching hours of support from their teacher and classmates, they will then prepare and conduct an interview with a family or community member who has participated in activism. Students will anonymize and upload interview transcripts to the ACTivate History global archive.
Through this process, students will:
- Learn what activism is and how it shapes democratic life,
- Develop research skills including interviewing, transcription, and analysis,
- Connect with older generations through intergenerational learning,
- Build critical and cross-cultural awareness,
- Feel empowered as young changemakers.
What will educators do?
We ask the participating schools and other educational institutions to designate a teacher-coordinator to support implementation. Teachers will receive:
- A detailed Teacher Guide and ready-to-use resources. Try some of them here.
- Training and ongoing support from our research team
- Access to an online platform that houses all materials, tutorials, and student tools
We value teachers’ time and understand their busy schedules.
The project is flexible and cross-curricular — easily integrated into subjects such history, civics, language arts, or social studies classes, as well as extracurricular programs.
Understanding the time constraints teachers face, the project is designed to be highly adaptable:
Teachers can decide how students work. The scope of participation can be tailored to the classroom context and student abilities.
The project has received full ethical approval and strictly adheres to established research ethics standards, including informed consent, confidentiality, and the voluntary nature of participation.
For additional details, reach Dr. Martyna Elerian.
Further insight
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