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For Educators

The Rhode Island COVID-19 Archive was launched in April 2020 in response to the COVID-19 global pandemic and was closed to submissions on June 30, 2023. The site and all contributions will be preserved by Providence Public Library and Rhode Island Historical Society.

We are eager to include the voices of young people in this archive, and we encourage educators to become Contributing Partners to the Rhode Island COVID-19 Archive (RICA) and to share their students' work with the project. The assembled work of a school or class will be presented as a standalone “Collection” within RICA, and each individual item can be searched or viewed within that Collection or across RICA as a whole.

We are able to accept written work, videos, audio recordings, slide shows, and any type of still visual imagery–really the output of any type of assignment. Please see the list of Recommended File Types below for the digital file types that work best on the site. We very much welcome your creativity when designing assignments, so feel free to contact rica@rihs.org if you have questions related to the technical output of your students.

LESSON PLANS

Please help yourself to the below lesson plans for suggestions of assignments to engage your students in reflection on the COVID-19 crisis through the creation of their own work or by utilizing primary source material contributed by others to RICA. You can also visit the Lesson Plans page on the RIHS website for additional information about these materials.

PERMISSIONS AND ANONYMITY

All student submissions must be accompanied by a signed release form granting permission from the students/parents/guardians for the work to be included in RICA. It is up to each student and their parents/guardians if they would like to be named with their work or remain anonymous. The submission release form includes a place for them to indicate their identification preference.

BECOME A CONTRIBUTING PARTNER

If you would like to submit work on behalf of your students and have your school become a contributing partner, please start by filling out this Google Form. Once we receive the form, we'll be in touch to get you on your way! 

Overall the process looks like this:

Please click here to view and download the full step-by-step instructions.

RECOMMENDED FILE TYPES

The archive can take pretty much any file type, but below are the ones that work the best. Let us know if you’d like to submit something else or have any questions about file types.

QUESTIONS?

For questions about the the lesson plans please contact: education@rihs.org

For all other questions please contact: rica@rihs.org