Most of us can recall a moment when we realized we were standing on a spot suffused with history. It might have been a place connected with a dramatic figure or event--the home of a famous person, the site of a famous battle--or it might have been significant on a smaller scale--a neighborhood that recalls life a century ago, a building that documents how or why a community grew. Teachers, preservationists, and historic site specialists have long known that historic locations can have the same effect on students, capturing their attention and interest in a way textbooks may not.

Yet professional training on how to incorporate these places into the classroom has rarely been easily available. The Teaching with Historic Places program has responded to this need by developing a series of professional development opportunities--publications, workshops, and a bibliography--for those who want to take advantage of historic sites to enrich the teaching of history, civics, and other subjects.

Publications
Cultural Resource Management: Creative Teaching with Historic Places
(vol. 23, No. 8, 2000)
is a thematic issue of CRM now available online. The articles in this issue of CRM highlight the power of place in learning, the evolution and creation of TwHP lesson plans, how individuals and organizations have employed TwHP ideas and materials, and the program within the broader context of a variety of National Park Service initiatives.

Cultural Resource Management: Teaching with Historic Places
(vol. 16, No. 2, 1993)
is a thematic issue of CRM now available online. The articles in this issue of CRM explain the origins, goals, and progress of the Teaching with Historic Places program within the wider contexts of educational programs that use the built environment--often called "heritage education"--and national educational reform.

Teaching with Historic Places' lesson plans
use historic sites to examine developments throughout American history and across the country. Many of our lesson plans are now on the Web and ready to use in the classroom. These lessons are created by National Park Service interpreters, preservation professionals, and educators. The lesson plans act as models for creating your own educational materials. We also have added an online author's packet providing further guidance that can help you write a lesson plan using the TwHP format.

A Curriculum Framework for Professional Training and Development
explains the educational and historical foundations for the Teaching with Historic Places program and describes how to bring places into the classroom. Distributed by the National Trust for Historic Preservation, it offers chapters on educational reform, content and skills to be learned from historic places, teaching strategies, the selection and use of places, collaborative programs and activities, and available resources.

How To Teach with Historic Places: A Technical Assistance Sourcebook
is an important reference kit for those planning professional development programs for teachers, public historians, and anyone interested in heritage education and curriculum development. The kit is no longer available in print, but Teaching with Historic Places will make it available on the Web in the future. It consists of a binder containing A Curriculum Framework, a slide presentation introducing how places connect us to the past, a guide to writing lesson plans, a guide to finding and using historic documents, and more.

Participants in a Teaching with Historic Places field study in Cleveland, OH.

Workshops
Teaching with Historic Places conducts workshops and conference sessions that explain the ideas behind the program and demonstrate how the historic places in your community can teach American history to people of all ages.

Comments about previous workshops:

"The field study was great...I've never been in another program like this."

"One of the best if not the best I have attended."

"Extremely valuable.."

Bibliography
This bibliography lists sources that describe TwHP and the theory behind it and provides other information about how places fit into the teaching of history and social studies.