Rick Steves

Rick Steves advocates smart, affordable, perspective-broadening travel. As host and writer of the popular public television series Rick Steves' Europe, and best-selling author of over 50 European travel books, he encourages Americans to travel as "temporary locals." He helps American travelers connect much more intimately and authentically with Europe — and Europeans — for a fraction of what mainstream tourists pay. Over the past 20 years, he has hosted over 100 travel shows for public television. He has also created two award-winning specials for public television: Rick Steves' European Christmas and the ground-breaking Rick Steves' Iran. Mr. Steves also hosts the weekly public radio program, "Travel with Rick Steves." In 2009, he tackled a new genre of travel writing with Travel as a Political Act, reflecting on how a life of travel has broadened his own perspectives, and travel can be a significant force for peace and understanding in the world. He lives and works in his hometown of Edmonds, Washington, where his office window overlooks his old junior high school.

James Loewen

James W. Loewen is an acclaimed historian and best-selling author of Lies My High School Teacher Told Me: Everything Your High School History Textbook Got Wrong. His mission is to overturn myths and misinformation that too often pass for U.S. history. He engages audiences with intelligence and humor, honing in on a range of topics encompassing U.S. history, multicultural education, civil rights, race relations, voting rights, law and social science. Mr. Loewen's latest book is The Confederate and Neo-Confederate Reader: The "Great Truths" about the "Lost Cause"that examines the original reasoning behind secession and subsequent myth-making in defense of slavery and white supremacy.

Regie Routman

Regie Routman is aa longtime teacher and author whose current work involves weeklong school residencies where she demonstrates effective literacy teaching in diverse classrooms, coaches teachers and principals, and facilitates ongoing professional conversations, all as a catalyst for sustainable, whole school change. Ms. Routman's teaching experience includes being a classroom teacher, a reading specialist, a learning disabilities tutor, a Reading Recovery teacher, a language arts resource and mentor teacher, a staff developer, and a literacy coach. Her books and resources are widely acclaimed as providing a solid, research-based understanding of language learning along with a wealth of practical ideas and extensive, annotated resources. Her latest work, Regie Routman in Residence, comprises three video-based professional development projects for schools and districts: "Transforming Our Teaching through Writing for Audience and Purpose," "Transforming Our Teaching through Reading-Writing Connections," and "Transforming Our Teaching through Reading to Understand."

Alan Sears

Alan Sears is a Professor of Social Studies Education at the University of New Brunswick. He has been a social studies teacher for more than 30 years, working at all levels from primary to graduate school. His research and writing have been in the fields of social studies, citizenship education, and history education. He is Associate Editor for the journal Citizenship Teaching and Learning. He has worked on the Spirit of Democracy Project, a collaborative effort with Russian colleagues focused on developing an approach to teaching key democratic ideas. His most recent research has focused on how children and young people understand key ideas related to citizenship. He is currently principal investigator on a project designed to map how young people in Alberta and eastern Canada conceptualize democratic participation and a co-investigator on a project looking at how young people and teachers conceptualize diversity in Canada.

Daniel Edelson

As a curriculum designer, software developer and educational researcher, Danny Edelson has dedicated his career to improving young people's understanding of the world they live in and their role in determining its future. He is currently vice president for education at the National Geographic Society, he oversees National Geographic's outreach to educators and its efforts to improve geographic and geoscience education in the United States and abroad. This work includes the creation of educational materials for learners of all ages, the delivery of professional development for educators, the implementation of public engagement programs, advocacy on behalf of geographic education in policy discussions and grant-making to support geographic literacy initiatives throughout the United States and Canada. Dr. Edelson has written extensively on motivation, classroom teaching and learning, educational technology and teacher professional development, drawing on research conducted with colleagues and students. He is an author of more than 50 papers in journals, edited books and conference proceedings, including "The Cambridge Handbook of the Learning Sciences," "The International Handbook on Science Education," Journal of the Learning Sciences, Journal of Research on Science Teaching, and The Science Teacher.

Charles Haynes

Charles C. Haynes is senior scholar at the First Amendment Center and director of the Religious Freedom Education Project at the Newseum in Washington, DC. He writes and speaks extensively on religious liberty and religion in American public life. Dr. Haynes is best known for his efforts to find common ground on First Amendment conflicts in public schools. Over the past two decades, he has been the principal organizer and drafter of consensus guidelines on religious liberty in schools, endorsed by a broad range of religious, civil liberties, and educational organizations. He is author or co-author of six books, including, most recently, First Freedoms: A Documentary History of First Amendment Rights in America. His column, “Inside the First Amendment,” appears in more than 200 newspapers nationwide.

Linda Levstik

Dr. Linda S. Levstik is a Professor of Education at the University of Kentucky. Her areas of academic interest and expertise include the development of historical thinking, classroom contexts for teaching history and the social studies, the development of inquiry skills in elementary age children, and children's literature. She is the author of many books, most recently Handbook of Research on Social Studies Education, co-authored with Dr. Cynthia Tyson. Dr. Levstik was awarded the Jean Dresden Grambs Distinguished Career Research Award in 2007 for her scholarship in history education.