The National Endowment for the Humanities recently awarded Colorado State University a $350,000 grant to enhance and expand the Colorado Encyclopedia, an online compendium of information on life in Colorado.

The funded project will include the production of 300 entries and 75 new annotated guides for K-12 educators, providing authoritative information on Colorado’s history and culture. New content will emphasize the history of political and civic engagement in the state.

The grant will be administered by Dawn Paschal, associate dean of research, digital library and data services at the Colorado State University Libraries. William Wei, professor of history at the University of Colorado Boulder, will serve as editor-in-chief of the Colorado Encyclopedia.

Project partners include the Libraries, Colorado State University’s Public Lands History Center, University of Colorado’s Center of the American West, Colorado Humanities and University Press of Colorado.

The Colorado Encyclopedia was founded to create a reliable source of information on the Centennial State. The Encyclopedia supports K-12 educators by providing articles, essays, interactive resources and other curricular materials. Content also features in-depth information for researchers and scholars.

The NEH is an independent federal agency that is one of the largest funders of humanities programs in the United States. The Humanities Collections and Reference Resources grant program supports projects that are essential for scholarship, education and public programming. About 200 applications are submitted to this NEH grant each year, and only 40 awards are made.

The Colorado Encyclopedia can be visited at coloradoencyclopedia.org.