Transatlantic Outreach Program

10/06/2026

Happy German-American Day! October 6 commemorates the 1683 arrival of 13 families from Krefeld, Germany, in Philadelphia and their later founding of Germantown, Pennsylvania. It also celebrates German-American heritage, with over 40 million Americans reporting German ancestry.

You and your students can explore how culture travels around the world with our inquiry-based lesson “German Roots, American Change,” available for download on the TOP Lessons Portal!

-American studies

Compelling Question: What did German families bring with them to America, and why did some traditions change?

10/03/2026

Happy German Unity Day! 🎆🇩🇪

10/03/2026

October 3 marks German Unity Day! In 1990 East and West Germany, which had been divided for 40 years, again became one county. 🎆🇩🇪

10/02/2026

We are pleased to announce that Ester González Martín has joined the TOP Team as our new Education Projects Manager! Welcome, Ester!

Ester grew up in Spain, where her interest in learning about other cultures led her to study Germanistik and gain an M.A. in Linguistics before moving to the U.S. to continue her graduate education. Last summer, she finished her PhD in German Cultural Studies. Over the last decade, she has taught a variety of courses on German language, literature, culture, and history. In her teaching, she integrates games, interactive storytelling, and digital humanities to create engaging and accessible materials. In her free time, she loves reading, painting, playing clarinet, and spending time in nature with her friends and her dog, Noodle. Ester is eager to bring these passions into her work at the Goethe-Institut and to learn from the TOP network of teachers.

09/08/2026

Join us in wishing TOP Education Projects Manager Mallory Bubar all the best as she transitions to a new role as Associate Director of the Holocaust & Human Rights Education Center in White Plains, NY! In her two years with TOP, Mallory has put so much heart into supporting our TOP Fellows and Alumni, taking the TOP Lessons Portal from a long-held dream to a reality, and launching our "Germany Today" speaker series. Thank you, Mallory, for your hard work and dedication! We will miss you, but know that you will continue to do great things in your new role.

As she parts, Mallory send this message to our TOP Alumni:

"I want to thank you all for making my time at TOP particularly meaningful. Working with all of you wonderful alumni (and of course Jenny!) has been a true highlight and something I will certainly miss. That said, education is a small world, and I have a feeling our paths will continue to cross. Again, thank you all for being so incredible and making my time at TOP so special."

08/17/2026

Here at TOP, one of our favorite things is seeing how teachers translate their in into lessons and learning experiences for their students back home!

2026 TOP Fellow Rhonda O'Keefe shared how she made her 6th grade students a part of the experience by having them research Germany and create challenges for her to complete during the tour. Their challenges included ordering a Döner, finding examples of sustainability, and visiting historical sites.

Rhonda created a website where she documented completion of the challenges, as well as the lessons she created for her application and her post-tour lesson requirement.

Check out the website here: https://sites.google.com/view/top2026/home

Thanks so much for sharing your experience with us and with your students, Rhonda!

08/14/2026

TOP 3 took part in a during their to this summer! Their photos show how sustainability is a lived value woven through Germany's culture, society, education system, economy, etc.

Here are a few of the photos they snapped while on their tour! do you remember any of these from your study tour? What other examples of sustainability did you learn about?

08/13/2026

Over the night of August 12 to 13, 1961, the East German governmant began putting up a barrier of barbed wire and concrete slabs designed to stop its own citizens from fleeing to the West. Over the next 28 years, the Berlin Wall stood as a symbol of division and oppression, claiming at least 140 lives before it fell on November 9, 1989. Now 65 years later, the remaining parts of the Wall serve as a memorial to this time period and to its victims.

It is an honor for us to bring social studies educators to these memorials and historical spaces to learn about the division of Germany and to help them make connections to their own classroom instruction. Through them, their students are better able to understand the past and how those lessons can help us shape the world today.

, what were your experiences visiting the during your and how have you used this experience in your classroom?

Stiftung Berliner Mauer

08/11/2026

The 2026 TOP Study Tours have concluded and as our cohort of social studies teachers begin the new school year, they are also reflecting on their experiences from this summer and the connections they can make to their own classroom instruction. In this article by Eric Erickson, he breaks down specific lessons from today's that can help his students better understand important concepts in their courses.

https://www.monitorsaintpaul.com/stories/modern-germany-takeaways-from-a-teacher-fellowship,173469

As a social studies teacher at Como Park High School, Germany enters the scope of my U.S. History course at a predictable time. You can’t study the 20th century without recognizing the outsized …

07/21/2026

Today TOP 3 had the great honor to meet with a representative from the Stolpersteine project to learn more about the project and their important work to keep alive the memory of the victims of national socialism. We also visited a cross-generational housing project in and were able to learn more about initiatives to help people "grow old with vitaility."

It has been an inspiring ten days in 🇩🇪 and we have so much new information and so many new lesson ideas to bring home to our students and fellow teachers in the U.S.!