In honor of Preservation Month, Teaching with Historic Places highlights the following complete lesson plans that feature activities that allow teachers and students to consider the role preservation plays in a community. Created by National Park Service interpreters, preservation professionals, and educators, these lessons are free and ready for immediate classroom use by students in history and social studies classes.

• America's Space Program: Exploring a New Frontier
  Discover how NASA, private industry, and research institutions across the country cooperated to develop and implement the complex technology that enabled man to land on the moon. Also determine whether equipment such as the launch tower for Saturn V should be considered historic and therefore worthy of preservation, and identify a structure or place in your community associated with a special event and determine its historic value. (Texas, Florida, and Alabama)

• Back Stairs at Brucemore: Life as Servants in early 20th-Century America
  Understand the "servant" experience in early 20th-century America, as well as the pros and cons for women working in factories versus domestic service. Also recognize how building usage may change over time and create a photographic display demonstrating these changes for a local historic site. (Iowa)

• Bryce Canyon National Park: Hoodoos Cast Their Spell
  Explore the natural wonders of Bryce Canyon and learn how it became a popular tourist destination and finally a national park. Also debate whether to develop or save (to create a park) a piece of land, and research local resources (a park, historic site, monument, etc.) to find out when and how it was created or set aside for public use, how it's used today, and then develop "advertising" for it. (Utah)

• Chicago's Black Metropolis: Understanding History through a Historic Place
  Examine the history of this self-supporting African-American community that prospered from the late 19th century until the 1930s. Also understand what makes a place "historic," and nominate a local historic place for a local, state, or national, register of historic places. (Illinois)

• Chicago's Columbus Park: The Prairie Idealized
  Learn about a famous landscape artist and his efforts to promote conservation and an appreciation for native plant life. Also design a park or garden for your school or community using native plants and materials and research a historic or natural site, which is endangered, explain what threatens it, and why it is worthy of being preserved in the form of a skit/play or masque (outdoor play). (Illinois)

• The Emerald Necklace: Boston's Green Connection
  Learn about Frederick Law Olmsted and his philosophy about parks and cities as well as city life during the Industrial Revolution. Also preserve green space by designing a park or park system in your own community with detailed design elements and submit it to the "Park Commission" for approval. (Massachusetts)

• Federal Courthouses and Post Offices: Symbols of Pride and Permanence in American Communities
  Learn how buildings restored and maintained by the U.S. General Services Administration illustrate the federal role in communities. Also research the process of nominating a building to the National Register of Historic Places, as well as ways in which buildings are designated at the state and local levels. Debate the value of documenting and officially recognizing historic places. (Colorado, Kentucky, and Oregon)

• First Battle of Manassas: An End to Innocence
  Study personal accounts of soldiers who fought in the first battle of the Civil War, and debate whether the U.S. should maintain historic sites where few substantial remains exist. (Virginia)

• Fortieth Anniversary of the National Historic Preservation Act
  Learn how the National Historic Preservation Act has affected your community in this lesson, prepared for the History Channel's Save Our History initiative.

• The Frankish Building: A Reflection of the Success of Ontario, California
  Analyze how this local landmark came to symbolize the commercial prosperity of a western town in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Also identify buildings in your community related to a town founder, and learn how to determine if community sites are of historical significance. (California)

• The Freeman School: Building Prairie Communities
  Examine this one-room school in Nebraska and consider the important role it played in the community. Also role-play a citizens' group who just bought (or were given) 5 acres of land on which the abandoned but historic Freeman School is located and decide for their community what to do with this building. (Nebraska)

• Glen Echo Park: Center for Education and Recreation
  Trace the evolution of this Maryland site from a chapter of the Chautauqua movement to a national park. Also create a history of a popular gathering place in your community, and locate successful examples of adaptive reuse. (Maryland)

• Going-to-the-Sun Road: A Model of Landscape Engineering
  Learn about some of the practical problems of constructing roads in difficult terrain and about the added challenge of building in such a way as to enhance, rather than damage, fragile and beautiful places such as Glacier National Park. Also debate whether parks should restrict the number of visitors to better conserve land and preserve its resources or let visitors (who are taxpayers funding the parks) use the facilities when and how they choose. (Montana)

• Harry Truman and Independence, Missouri: "This is Where I Belong"
  Learn why the life of the 33rd U.S. President serves as an example of civic duty and explore the town that helped form his character. Also understand why Truman felt strongly about preserving history in states, towns, and neighborhoods, and identify and research historic places in your own neighborhood. (Missouri)

• Independence Hall: International Symbol of Freedom Learn about Independence Hall and about how the international influence of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution led to the designation of the building in which they were adopted as a World Heritage Site. (Pennsylvania)
  

• Johnson Lake Mine: Mining for Tungsten in Nevada’s Snake Range
  Explore both how tungsten was mined and used at the turn of the 20th century and also how archeologists piece the past together from artifacts and other archeological evidence. (Nevada)

• Log Cabins in America: The Finnish Experience
  Consider how simple, functional cabins, like those built by the Finns in Idaho, became symbols in American politics and folklore. Also understand why it was important to list them on the National Register of Historic Places. (Idaho)

• Mammoth Cave: Its Explorers, Miners, Archeologists, and Visitors
  Tour the world's longest cave, a geological wonder, and assess the ways it has been used and preserved as a historic resource. Also identify a site in your community, one that ought to be preserved, but is not yet protected, and devise a conservation plan for that site. (Kentucky)

• Mechanics Hall: Symbol of Pride and Industry
  Examine how the advent of industrialization in 19th-century America impacted the workforce in New England's Blackstone River Valley. Also compile a list of historic structures in your community, research their history, and volunteer as a docent at one of the sites. (Massachusetts)

• Memories of Montpelier: Home of James and Dolley Madison
  Visit the Madisons' plantation home and their world of social prominence, and work with a local historical society to develop a special exhibit for the community on a historic site in your area. (Virginia)

• A Nation Repays Its Debt:
  The National Soldiers' Home and Cemetery in Dayton, Ohio
  Learn about the evolution of a system to honor and care for U.S. veterans and write a biography of a local soldiers life from birth through war to his, or her, final resting place and donate it to the local historical society. (Ohio)

• The Old Courthouse in St. Louis: Yesterday and Today
  Compare historic events that took place at St. Louis's handsome Courthouse. Also identify older public buildings in your community and research their purposes and usage over time, and learn how preservationists determine what should and should not be preserved. (Missouri)

• Paterson, New Jersey: America's Silk City
  Learn about the causes and effects of a famous silk industry strike and how it affected those who were involved. (New Jersey)

• The Penniman House: A Whaling Story
  Meet Captain Edward Penniman, and learn about 19th-century whaling in southeastern Massachusetts and how the whaling industry impacted Penniman's family and life. (Massachusetts)

• Roadside Attractions
  Follow the highways of the 1920s and 1930s, exploring the whimsical, extravagant architecture that came with American auto culture. Also investigate the ways in which automobiles changed your community, and find an example of fanciful, vernacular architecture and research what is being done to preserve it. (Kentucky, Minnesota, New York, North Carolina, South Dakota, and Washington)

• Run For Your Lives! The Johnstown Flood of 1889
  Determine how environmental management, technology, and the actions of 19th-century industrialists contributed to a disaster in Pennsylvania that shocked the nation. Also understand why a community spent funds to restore a railway built to save lives. (Pennsylvania)
  

• Savannah, Georgia: The Lasting Legacy of Colonial City Planning
  Learn about James Oglethorpe and his enduring city plan from the colonial era. Also debate whether your town's historic area could be nominated to the National Register of Historic Places. (Georgia)

• The Siege and Battle of Corinth: A New Kind of War
  Understand how newly developed technologies affected two military engagements and one tiny town in Mississippi during the Civil War. (Mississippi)

• Skagway: Gateway to the Klondike
  Join the stampede for gold when over 100,000 prospectors set out for the Klondike, and develop a promotional brochure or walking tour from histories of buildings that illustrate your community's development. (Alaska)

• Springwood: Birthplace and Home to Franklin D. Roosevelt
  Understand how Springwood was the keystone in Franklin Delano Roosevelt's public as well as private life by playing host to some very dramatic events in American history. Also research a local WPA project in your local community. (New York)

• Theodore Roosevelt Inaugural Site: Birthplace of the Modern Presidency
  Examine how Theodore Roosevelt became President of the United States and how he modernized the presidency. Also make a time line with information about a historic structure in your area at various times in its history, including important events that occurred in the United States during that same time. Donate the completed project to the local historical society so others may benefit from your research. (New York)

• Two American Entrepreneurs: Madam C.J. Walker and J.C. Penney
  Examine the historic places associated with two of America's most famous 20th century business people. Also research successful local businesses in your community, and understand the importance of preserving buildings as part of a community's history. (Indiana and Wyoming)

• Waterford, Virginia: From Mill Town to National Historic Landmark
  Examine continuity and change in this rural Virginia town from its founding to today. Also write a history of your town or neighborhood by researching when it was founded and why, as well its occupational history. (Virginia)

• Wheat Farms, Flour Mills, and Railroads: A Web of Interdependence
  Examine the inextricable connections binding railroads, North Dakota wheat fields, and Minnesota flour mills during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. (Minnesota)

 
To learn more about TwHP's other lessons, visit the Lesson Plan Descriptions page.