Heritage Projects & Place-Based Education

Krystle, a senior at Broadwater (County) High School, in Townsend, MT, interviews ranch wife, Mrs. Dorothy Hahn, for a Heritage Project assignment.

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Students and teachers participating in a Heritage Project are asked to explore their community's place in national and world events; its relationship to the natural and built environments; and its cultural heritage as expressed in traditions and celebrations, literature and arts, the local and global economy, and everyday life. The broad goals of a Heritage project are to positively impact a particular state or school's educational achievement by providing teachers and students the means and motivation to become cultural researchers and historians of their own communities.

Project students and schools conduct research at public community gatherings and in such places as people's homes, lumber mills and fire stations, and in libraries and archives. They acquire practical skills in using documentary media - cameras, audio and video tape recorders; learn how to critically analyze and interpret texts of all kinds; and turn raw data into interpretive exhibits and scholarly products. In this way, they discover the importance of maintaining and preserving their research findings for use by the local community and by the next generation of scholars.

Heritage projects like the ones that AFC helped establish several years ago in Arizona and Montana engage young people in conducting place-based research. Consult the articles and educational resources listed below to understand how and in what ways place-based educational programs are developed and their impact on student engagement with schools and communities.

MONTANA HERITAGE PROJECT " ...dedicated to teaching young people to think clearly and deeply about the world they face... to form research questions, gather evidence, and reflect critically upon what they find..." Student literary magazine (2000) produced by students at Simms High School, Simms, MT Learn more about the Montana Heritage Project

ARIZONA HERITAGE PROJECT " ...one of AHP's goals is to develop 'citizens' in the fullest sense of the word -- students who value the history of their place, and who are engaged in shaping their community's future. " The Arizona Heritage Project was a program at the Cactus Shadows High School, Cave Creek, AZ

Essays:

• "The Power of Community-Centered Education: Teaching as a Craft of Place" by Michael Umphrey (2007)
• "Arizona Heritage Project Investigates Community Folklife, History, and Culture" by Guha Shankar, Folklife Center News, Volume 26 no. 4, page 8-10 (2004) [PDF 1.9 MB]
• "The Power of the Real: The Montana Heritage Project After Seven Years," by Michael Umphrey, Folklife Center News, Volume 24, no. 4, pp. 3-8 (2002) [PDF, 806 KB]
• "Montana Heritage Education Project Brings Schools Back Into Community," by Michael Umphrey, Folklife Center News, Volume 19, no. 3-4, pp 3-9 (1997) [PDF, 4.36 MB]
• Montana Heritage Workshop: New Project Looks to "The Next Generation" by Alan Jabbour, Folklife Center News, Volume 17, no. 2, pp. 12-13 (1995) [PDF, 3.48 MB]