Frederick Douglass, Sojourner Truth, Martin Luther King Jr., Aretha Franklin, Barack Obama are just a few of the names that can come to mind when the words “Black History Month” are heard from Twitter, News Stations, and (even still) radios.

As heard on the announcements, Social Studies Teacher, Mrs. Leeper, embraced the importance of Black History Month not only during free time like Lunch and Learn, but also in lesson plans. “I know there are several films on the Social Studies Lunch & Learn calendar for recognizing Black History Month, but we also had student presentations of Landmark Civil Rights Supreme Court Cases, along with discussions and reflections pertaining to video clips and the films that were shown,” Leeper described.

After a conversation with the past teacher and now 9-10 Principal, Mr. Krehlik, and present teacher Leeper about a possible new curriculum in February, it was made sure that classroom time for Leeper’s own students and an outside of the classroom learning experience for all students would be developed. “We decided to use Lunch and Learn to offer opportunities of enrichment in recognition of Black History Month,” Leeper said.

Movies like Hidden Figures, 42, and Lincoln were a few movies shown in the past month dealing with topics such as the push for the 14th Amendment (Lincoln), breaking the baseball major league color barrier (42), and the breaking of the NASA color barrier (Hidden Figures).

Clips from a PBS special on “Black America since MLK” with a discussion focused on the racial equality in the United States since the civil rights era is scheduled for a Lunch and Learn at the end of the month, so there is still time to catch a very informative lesson.

For Leeper, Black History Month is an opportunity to focus and celebrate the contributions African Americans have had in our history and students are very pleased with the new topics of discussion.

“It is very interesting to learn, it helps us understand the struggles that they had to through to get to the freedom that they have now,” said sophomore, Nathan Fagan.

Another student in one of her classes, junior, Kalista Price also enjoyed the learning and said, “It is cool that we spend some time on it, because it’s not something that I remember actually learning about in school when I was younger.”

As you can see, Leeper’s influential lesson plans are something that you can take advantage of as well so, make sure that before the month ends you can get a taste of this inspiring experience during Lunch and Learn.