Eliza West and Emily Toettcher explain how a partnership between school and museum has evolved into a four-year enquiry into local history. The article focuses on the successful introduction of an oral history element in the GCSE syllabus and how the investigation into 'remembered' history helps students to appreciate the complexities of truth and…

Eighth-grade students from three school districts in three small towns in Crosby County, Texas, received academic credit for working together with the biannual Crosby County Pioneer Memorial Museum summer travel education program. Each of the three districts radiate from a small town. They were within one county, and the museum was located in the…

This article discusses how museum settings can provide opportunities for sensory and aesthetic encounters and learning. It draws on research into museum education programmes that included examinations of curatorial construction and display, observations of teaching and open-ended interviews with museum educators. The examples selected here focus…

Two articles are presented in this column. "Life in an Auto Factory: Simulating how Labor and Management Interact" by Eric B. Freedman describes a classroom simulation of management and labor relations in an auto factory. Classroom handouts are included. The next article, "Women of Action and County Names: Mary Musgrove County--Why…

This article, by Lynda Abbott and Richard Grayson, offers a fascinating example of collaboration between school and university, focused on the development of a community archive. The project--run as an extra-curricular activity--was originally inspired by a concern to preserve the personal stories of those whose lives were affected by the Second…

The author discusses his experience in a university project that led to the creation of a first-year writing text based on interviews with members of a local neighborhood. In particular, he analyzes the negative reaction that many of the community's residents expressed toward the text's portrayals of them. From the tensions that developed, the…

Since the fall of 2006 a number of Towson University students concentrating in the discipline of anthropology have been part of a civic engagement and service-learning project focusing on an historic African-American community in Baltimore. While the focus of the research project concentrates on the processes of gentrification, individual student…

Discusses how oral history can motivate elementary students in the social studies. Suggests oral history learning activities and procedures to help students recreate events from the past. (CK)

History frequently is taught as a set of facts that must be memorized to either pass a test or become culturally literate (Whelan 1997). Such an approach to history instruction reduces content to a consumable, socially irrelevant product and strips meaning from the classroom. To alleviate the drudgery of typical history instruction, teachers can…

This article describes a teacher development program that engages history and social studies teachers in making connections between learning and the well-being of places in which people actually live. "Our Place in History" is a three-year, federally-funded professional development institute for twenty teachers from diverse communities…

Describes "Project History in the Making" in which students in the class of 1990 read letters written by members of the classes of 1940 and 1965 and write letters to the class of 2015. Notes some of the questions asked by the class of 1990 to invited guests from the classes of 1940 and 1965. (RS)

Described is a history education project of the Illinois Regional Archives Depository System which shows that archives can be both repositories and disseminators of information. A curriculum packet composed of facsimiles of local government records for use in secondary school history classes was developed. (RM)

Describes one urban education program in Scotland which uses a travelling classroom exhibit to involve students in investigations of streets, parks, churches, and shops. Another program, which has students compare the architecture, history and local features of a town to their own, is also featured. (DC)

Discusses a local history project sponsored by The Brick Store Museum in Kennebunk, Maine. States that studying a local community focuses students' attention on how people and historical events have shaped their own lives. Describes how the program helped a fourth grade class explore and understand the past and present, as well as prospects for…

Describes a program conducted by the Boston National Historical Park and the nonprofit historic sites along Boston's Freedom Trail to provide opportunities for teachers to learn more about local history and to interpret that history in their classrooms. Involves workshops and a summer teacher institute. (LZ)