Casper kids will soon be taught American history by experts in all eras of our country's past - from the Pilgrims to the Pony Express and the Prohibition.

The experts?

Their teachers, thanks to a grant from the U.S. Department of Education that formed the American History Cowboy Coalition, a group of educators and historians who want to change the way Wyoming students learn about their heritage.

Education officials from both Natrona County and the Wyoming Department of Education met at Fort Caspar Museum on Monday to accept a check from the U.S. Department of Education for $999,779, to be used for the first year of professional development for Casper's history teachers.

Nearly $3 million will be used for teacher training during the next three years to create a systematic change in the way U.S. history is taught and to develop a community of teacher and student historians who are more active citizens, according to Joel Dvorak, the district's associate superintendent for curriculum and instruction.

Throughout the next three years, social studies teachers will take part in history seminars to enrich their own knowledge, as well as to discuss better ways to teach the subject.

"We've all memorized facts all the time, but that's not the best way to learn about history," said Dvorak. "We want to teach U.S. history in a rigorous, relevant way that makes it come alive for the kids."

In addition, the money will be used to develop a database of historical primary sources in Wyoming, so teachers have easy access to research materials.

Being a history teacher is hard work, according to Kim Ibach, a social studies teacher at Kelly Walsh, who developed the Cowboy Coalition along with the district, the University of Wyoming, the American Heritage Center and the Natrona County Historical Society.

Mostly, this is because the job involves teaching hundreds of years in just two short semesters, and teachers are supposed to know about each and every significant event for a multitude of history classes.

"From my personal experience, when I started teaching I was supposedly certified to teach all areas of American history," explained Ibach. "But I felt inadequate with my background, so I ended up going to obtain a master's degree in teaching American history."

In college, she said, many teachers had general classes and only focused on one particular part of the world's history.

"For example, I'd be really in to 20th century American history, but my comfort level might be low teaching American Revolutionary history," she said.

In an effort to remedy this situation for the country's teachers, the U.S. Department of Education awarded over 100 such grants to school districts around the nation last year. This is the first time a district in Wyoming has received a "Teaching American History" grant.