Teaching with Historic Places

Teaching with Historic Places
Name	Teaching with Historic Places
Formation	1988
Headquarters	Washington, D.C.
Owner	National Park Service

Teaching with Historic Places is a program administered by the National Park Service that promotes the use of historic sites as primary-source classrooms for K–12 and secondary educators. The program links historic properties to curricular themes across United States history, World War II, the American Civil War, and the Cold War while engaging teachers with resources connected to the Library of Congress, Smithsonian Institution, and state historic preservation offices. By combining site descriptions, primary documents, and lesson plans, the program connects places such as the Statue of Liberty, Gettysburg National Military Park, and Monticello to classroom inquiry.

Overview

Teaching with Historic Places presents National Register of Historic Places nominations and National Historic Landmarks alongside interpretative essays that illuminate the significance of sites like Independence Hall, Alcatraz Island, Ellis Island, and Fort Sumter. The program synthesizes material from the National Archives, Library of Congress, Smithsonian Institution, National Trust for Historic Preservation, and state historical societies to create educator-focused modules that reference events such as the Louisiana Purchase, the Mexican–American War, the Spanish–American War, and the Civil Rights Movement. It frames site narratives in the context of personalities including Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, Frederick Douglass, Martin Luther King Jr., and Harriet Tubman while connecting to legal landmarks like the Emancipation Proclamation and the Brown v. Board of Education decision.

Curriculum Integration and Lesson Planning

Lesson plans align site studies with standards from organizations such as the National Council for the Social Studies and draw upon primary materials from the Library of Congress and the National Archives and Records Administration. Educators adapt activities tied to sites like Mount Vernon, Plymouth Rock, Fort McHenry, and Bunker Hill to fit grade-level outcomes in units covering the American Revolution, Constitution of the United States, War of 1812, and the Progressive Era. Cross-disciplinary links make use of resources associated with institutions such as the Smithsonian National Museum of American History, New-York Historical Society, Harvard University, and Yale University for projects that integrate with literature about figures like Benjamin Franklin, Alexander Hamilton, and Susan B. Anthony.

Teaching Strategies and Classroom Activities

Recommended strategies emphasize document analysis, site interpretation, and place-based inquiry using guided questions drawn from sources at the Library of Congress and the National Archives. Activities include comparative analysis of sites like Harriet Tubman Underground Railroad National Historical Park, Lowell National Historical Park, Pullman National Historical Park, and Selma to Montgomery National Historic Trail; role-plays based on persons such as Sojourner Truth and W.E.B. Du Bois; and mapping exercises that reference cartographic collections from the David Rumsey Map Collection and the Bureau of Land Management. Fieldwork protocols encourage partnerships with organizations such as the National Trust for Historic Preservation, State Historic Preservation Office, Historic New England, and local museums including the American Philosophical Society.

Assessment and Learning Outcomes

Assessment models propose performance tasks tied to historic sites—research portfolios built from National Register of Historic Places documents, interpretive signage projects informed by National Park Service standards, and argumentative essays referencing sources from the Library of Congress, National Archives and Records Administration, and university archives at Columbia University or Princeton University. Learning outcomes map to competencies articulated by the National Council for the Social Studies and aim to develop historical thinking skills exemplified in scholarship by historians at the American Historical Association and the Organization of American Historians. Rubrics assess analysis of artifacts connected to collections at the Smithsonian Institution, New York Public Library, and regional historical societies such as the Missouri Historical Society.

Case Studies and Example Sites

Representative case studies include interpretive units for Monticello, Biltmore Estate, Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire, Fort Sumter, Cahokia Mounds State Historic Site, Carnegie Hall, Rosa Parks Museum, Manzanar National Historic Site, Little Rock Central High School, and Fort McHenry National Monument and Historic Shrine. Internationally resonant sites such as Pearl Harbor National Memorial and places tied to immigration like Ellis Island illustrate transnational themes linked to figures and events including Franklin D. Roosevelt, the Great Depression, World War I, and the Vietnam War.

Resources and Materials for Educators

Available materials draw from National Park Service teaching packets, digitized collections at the Library of Congress, lesson sets developed with the National Endowment for the Humanities, and professional development offered by institutions such as the Smithsonian Institution, Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, Teaching American History Project, and state departments of education. Supplemental multimedia includes oral histories from the Veterans History Project, photographs from the Farm Security Administration collection, architectural drawings from the Historic American Buildings Survey, and lesson support from museums like the Museum of Modern Art and the Newseum (National Press Museum).

Category:National Park Service programs Category:Historical education in the United States