The National Center’s Heritage Education Program uses cultural resources to develop life-long learning in k-12 students. The program’s products support local curriculum standards, national education standards and the goals of No Child Left Behind. The National Center’s Heritage Education program partners with National Park Service units, other heritage resources, k-12 schools, and teacher training colleges and universities.
In 2006, the Heritage Education Program hired a new program coordinator, Christine Faith. The Heritage Education program is being positioned to expand into other geographic areas.
Program Values
The program values for Heritage Education have been revised to reflect the new direction for the program. The following value statements serve to define the Heritage Education program at the National Center:
- Foster heritage resource stewardship to encourage the learner to care for and protect cultural, archeological and historic landscape resources.
- Develop in the learner community awareness and civic responsibility to strengthen the learner’s connection to the places they and their families live, work and play.
- Instill and support the development of Heritage Education technology that serves as a method of lesson delivery and lesson support.
- Promote Heritage Education as a method of lesson delivery to help prepare students for standardized tests by reinforcing curriculum standards and supporting the learner directly.
Heritage Education Web Page
Since 2001, the Heritage Education program at the National Center has been successful as a pilot program in the State of Louisiana. The Heritage Education program is now poised to move into a national arena. To support that transition new material has been developed and posted to the National Center’s Heritage Education web page.
Program Marketing and Promotion
An active marketing and promotion campaign is supporting the transition of the Heritage Education program onto the national scene. One part of this effort is the recruitment of talented undergraduate and graduate students from the Northwestern State University College of Education. A marketing tool used to recruit candidates into the V.I.P. program has been completed and distributed. This marketing and promotion effort is expected to generate support for the program in the form of volunteer staff.
Project Agreement
A Project Agreement between the National Park Service’s Southeast Archeological Center (SEAC) and the National Center has been signed. This Project Agreement allows for John Jameson of SEAC to participate in workshops scheduled for summer 2008. Jameson is an expert in archeological interpretation, an appropriate vehicle for Heritage Education.
Alliance of National Heritage Areas
In October 2006, Christine Faith attended the Alliance of National Heritage Areas (ANHA) meeting in Lackawanna, Pa. The meeting focused on Heritage Education. Faith presented material to meeting attendees detailing the Heritage Education program at the National Center. All attending Heritage Areas were interested in furthering partnership opportunities with the National Center in an effort to leverage joint assets toward creating strong heritage education programs across the country. Data is being reviewed to identify which Heritage Areas would be the best fit with the Heritage Education program at the National Center.
Heritage Education Presentations
Recently, Faith made two presentations to veteran teachers through the Louisiana Geography Alliance, one presentation to Social Studies Methods students at Northwestern State University (NSU), and one presentation to Master’s of Heritage Resources students at NSU. A fifth presentation is scheduled for April.
Heritage Education Model
The Teacher Mini Grants program has awarded grants to teachers in Louisiana for a series of granting cycles. As a result of those grants, a model for teaching Heritage Education has been identified from the deliverable components of the granting process. This model demonstrates both the relevancy and effectiveness of heritage education in the context of curriculum based education. This recently identified model illustrates the unique ability of heritage education to develop in learners both the academic skills necessary for scholastic success but also the social connections necessary for success as a member of a community.
- Students often do original, authentic, primary research (interviewing older community residents, doing archival research, etc.) as opposed to relying on previously published information.
- Students create unique presentations that they share with audiences beyond their teacher and their classmates.
- The students often participate in service learning, so the community benefits in some way from the student work. These three aspects separate the projects from traditional library research papers and the second two components separate them from traditional social studies fair projects.
Podcast
A digital recording session occurred the week of March 19 to record the first National Center podcast for worldwide availability. The podcast, entitled Partnerships in Heritage Education, focuses on the need to develop strong working partnerships across diverse groups to create strong Heritage Education programs.
Virginia City and Nevada City, Montana
Virginia City and Nevada City, Mont., have been identified as a potential location to grow the Heritage Education program at the National Center. These locations house several hundred buildings and nearly 1 million artifacts. They have active teacher training, interpretation, and education components. However, the sites lack consistent access to resources in formal education, curriculum development, and current education legislation such as No Child Left Behind (NCLB). The aforementioned are skills the National Center can bring to the cultural resource unit. A site visit was conducted March 25-29.