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History major Lamar Odhner has been awarded a scholarship to attend the 2008 Williamsburg Teacher Institute in Early American History. This internship is unique to Bryn Athyn College, and will provide Lamar with an opportunity to join teachers and historians in an intensive one-week course focusing on an interdisciplinary approach to teaching history.

Lamar is already active in the historical education community. She has participated in several history internships through Bryn Athyn College, including serving for the last year as one of Glencairn Museum's Education Interns. In addition to her week in Williamsburg, Lamar will be an assistant director at education summer camps in two Colonial Era house museums in the Philadelphia area this summer.

Of being awarded the scholarship Lamar says, "I could not be more excited about attending the Teacher Institute at Colonial Williamsburg this summer! I am a third-year student working on a history degree with an American emphasis and I love the idea of bringing history to life through interactive teaching methods . . . I look forward to learning from and alongside of experienced history teachers at the Institute so that I can use the Colonial Williamsburg experience and the materials from it in my work."

Some of the highlights of the interactive program at the Teacher Institute this year will include:

• Studying 17th and 18th century artifacts
• Examining reasons why colonists chose Williamsburg as a settlement location (tidewater, geography)
• Visiting Jamestown, a recreated Powhatan village, and an English fort
• Touring replicas of sailing vessels
• Reading diaries and journals to learn about family life
• Comparing different styles of dress and how they represented status
• Spending a day at the Great Hope Plantation, experiencing the life of African residents
• Learning stories, games and music in the slave quarters
• Hearing Patrick Henry and Thomas Jefferson in the Capitol building of Virginia debating independence from Britain and casting her vote as a representative
• Becoming part of Colonial Williamsburg’s teacher network, exchanging ideas and receiving updates on new resources and methods

To find out more about the Williamsburg Teacher Institute, please visit www.history.org/history/teaching.