Hello everyone. I am an archivist at a large, land-grant university where I work in a Special Collections Library. I focus on creating research experiences and projects for students by working with faculty members to utilize our collections in interesting and useful ways. Each year I try to update my recent history "case studies" to show new and exciting ways that primary source-based and historical research is impacting news stories or events that are happening around the world today.
I come here to ask for your help in trying to determine which case studies or recent events will be most helpful or applicable to helping students understand the importance of preserving and using our past. They can be general or very detailed - I am really looking for studies that will capture the attention of students.
Thank you for your help, and my best wishes to you all!
Hoping I understand what you're asking for correctly, one example I know from the Medieval Europe camp is the University of Nottingham's use of a literal medieval potion to combat the superbug MRSA.
Christina Lee is an active Anglo-Saxonist working with medieval medicine (which is a hot topic right now in medieval research along with the history of medicine in general). She brought the recipe for an eye infection treatment potion from the well-known Bald's Leechbook to the attention of the university's Centre for Biomolecular Sciences, which in turn used modern scientific methods to determine whether or not the Anglo-Saxons were using a genuinely effective kind of medicine. The results were, in their words, "astonishing." The formula from the Leechbook was effective against Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), which is typically resistant to modern antibiotics. The headlines "ANGLO-SAXON RECIPE CURES SUPERBUG" were a little dramatic--no hospital patients were getting treated with an early medieval potion, but it was an exciting discovery for both the medievalists and molecular biologists. Last I heard, research was is still underway in refining the Leechbook recipe into something modern medicine can make use of.