Branding your library with Local History: Students and Teachers
About
The introduction of Common Core Curriculem standards means an increased emphasis on analyzing and interpreting data and materials. Use your local history materials to create lesson plans for local schools or develop outreach kits that tell the story of a prominent or interesting local figure or event. History can be seen as a real-life detective story, where the student must use different resources to interpret an event that played an important role in their community. This also gives your library an opportunity to work with the school district.
Educational Tools
- Teaching the Hudson ValleyFree K-12 lesson plans on different subjects with a regional spin. Designed to foster and encourage collaboration between schools, libraries, museums and educators.
- New York State History DayNational History Day, a year-long educational program sponsored in New York State by the New York State Historical Association, encourages students to explore local, state, national, and world history. After selecting a historical topic that relates to an annual theme, students conduct extensive research by using libraries, archives, museums, and oral history interviews. They analyze and interpret their findings, draw conclusions about their topics' significance in history, and create final projects that present their work. These projects can be entered into a series of competitions, from the local to the national level, where they are evaluated by professional historians and educators.
- Publications on Teaching with Historical RecordsCourtesy of the New York State Archives
School Programming
A middle school technology class learns about the history of the Wallkill Public Library as part of a GO Grant sponsored project. The program involved recording oral histories as part of a digital walking tour of noteable buildings.