| Lesson
Plans: Creating a Historic Site
Objectives:
1. To understand why some historic sites are preserved.
2. To learn the meaning of historic significance.
3. To understand that historic sites are unique and
non-renewable resources that must be preserved since
they cannot be replaced.
Lesson Activities:
Activity 1
Ask your students to suggest some historic sites (Vicksburg,
Mount Vernon, Omaha Beach). Make a list on the blackboard
and discuss with the class what each of the sites
has in common. (For example: each site is located
where something important occurred, the site has visitors,
in general the staff at a historic site try to keep
the place looking the way it did at the time of the
event, there is usually a museum or signs to interpret
the event.)
Discussion Points:
How do historians know something important happened
at a site?
What does important mean (historical significance)?
What can historic sites teach us?
Activity 2
Split the class into teams of five students. Have
each team pick a place to declare a historic site.
This could be a student's birthplace, the school gym
where a big basketball game occurred, or even the
local mall where Santa's workshop was set up in December.
They should be prepared to defend their choice on
the basis of historic significance.
The teams should decide what historic event to interpret
and conduct research to prove that the event occurred
and to determine objectively exactly what happened.
They can conduct oral histories by talking to their
parents or fellow students, check photo albums, letters,
newspapers at the library, etc.
The teams should collect "artifacts" that were on
site when the event occurred and primary source documents
that tell the story of the event and the site. The
students should consider what story these artifacts
and documents tell and write exhibit labels to accompany
them.
Each team should draw two maps of the site, one
as it is now, and one as it was when the event occurred.
The teams should make signs to hang at the site,
interpreting it. They should design and draw or build
out of clay a monument to be placed on or near the
site for visitors, and they should create a brief
tour for guides to give.
The teams should present their historic sites to
the class, discussing how each artifact, sign, map,
and monument will help visitors to understand and
learn from the event that occurred on their site.
Activity 3
After the presentations, discuss why it is important
that the historic site be located where the event
occurred.
The presentations are given in the classroom. Would
actually visiting the site provide a different kind
of experience?
Would it be any easier or more fun to learn on-site
than to study the site in the classroom?
Would a tour of any field teach the same as a tour
of the battlefield at Gettysburg?
How would they feel if someone destroyed the site?
What would be lost?
Optional Activity
Visit a historic site near you.
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