A guide to our
Historical Education Programs,
Outreach Programs
In-School History Presentations: Public, Private and Home-School Settings
Purpose and function: To compliment historical education programs so as
to make them more meaningful and practically relevant to the student’s modern experience. Through these non-traditional programs, schools will more effectively achieve state standards.
Conducting
the Program:
How: Staff contacts and negotiates agreements with authorized parties or
scheduling and making all arrangements. Students given study preparation kits.
First-person, biographical approach, costumed, living history
interpreters teach period colonial and early American frontier history, in order that students may see it through the eyes
of those who experienced it.
Storytelling in either first or third person presentation
relates what the first wild, wild west was really like on America’s first frontier for whites, blacks and Indians.
Interactive presentations provide frontier history with opportunities
for students to ask questions and to participate in identifying issues that have contemporary relevance for them and for modern
America. Multi-media presentations are included.
Teachers use pre-assessment forms, which we supply, and review
and build upon presentations to reinforce learning and application.
Who: Trained staff of Providence Plantation will conduct these non-traditional presentations. The schoolteachers may assist in evaluating the effectiveness of each presentation and present a written
report to the department head.
Requirements for participation: The institutions must be certified by the
state of location and eligible for funding by their own school board of education or local organization.
Desired accomplishment: To give students an accurate and more exciting view
of the earliest years of America’s history, from which they can address contemporary issues and understand better what
it means to be an American today.
Electronic Field
Trips (currently in development)
This would be a subscription-sponsored history presentations on-line for school districts in the
tri-state area and conceivably nation-wide are projected.
Purpose and functions: To provide a wider tool to provide historical information and techniques for teachers
to supplement current modalities. Costumed teacher/re-enactors on-site at Providence
Plantation can communicate more effectively the reality of the history in a re-created physical environment than classroom
instructors. A variety of high-tech features will combine to provide on-line
information and support to accelerate and maximize student’s learning.
Location: Providence Plantation is currently working with Comcast out of Pittsburgh to train our staff as producers,
camera operators and tech support.
Conducting the program:
Who:
As of this date we are looking at collaboration between a technical service
business and members of our organization. This is one of the areas we are currently
looking for funding through grants and donations.
How: This is a long term goal of the organization and is being researched.
Desired accomplishments: To effectively use the latest technology to communicate the values and qualities of
the men and women, Euro Americans, Indian and African, who lived on America’s first frontier. Together they made American
the greatest nation in all of human history. These people serve as real heroes
and role models for what it means to be a true American today.
On-Site Programs
Field Trips for Students
These educational
presentations provide unique hands-on participation on the part of the students on the 18th century frontier plantations
in our area. Whether as members of the household, or in some other capacity,
students perform activities common to plantation life for young people. Whether
that is a trade such as brick laying, blacksmithing or wood-working with period tools, or participate in frontier scouting
or military reconnoitering for those who threaten the well-being of area settlers.
Purpose and Functions: First-person presentations are combined with story-telling techniques to enable students
to see history through the eyes of the peoples of the early, middle and late periods of the 18th century. By meeting the living biographies of significant men, women and children who lived
on the frontier, students will see, hear and feel what it meant to live in our area when it was virtually nothing but a vast
wilderness containing every danger imaginable to one’s well-being. By seeing
how frontiersmen, blacks and Indians viewed the world they made together, by listening to their stories and by assuming the
role of a neighbor who asks a lot of questions students will experience history as never before. By participating in the tasks of the Plantation as well as the games young enjoyed, students will see how
balance between work and play and the role of the family factored strongly into their 18th century counterparts
on the frontier. The costumes of the presenters and the physical environment
of the Plantation all combine to lend weight to what is said in the presentations themselves.
Location: The on-site field trips will be held at Providence Plantation. Our
geographical site is nearly ideal in that it is very central to the immediate, quadrant of counties, which contain the largest
percentage of the population of Western Pennsylvania and the largest number of school districts. The same centrality exists in relationship to the tri-state area.
Being in a rather sparsely populated area also assists in recreating the physical environment essential to effectively
communicating the sense of being on the western frontier.
Conducting the Program:
How: Providence Plantation
Staff contact the history teachers at area schools and invite them to schedule on site field trips for students. Dates that are available are presented to the teachers, who obtain the approval of administrators and fee,
transportation and food arrangements are made.
Who: Costumed interpreters
take over upon arrival to introduce the students to each activity in the program, which takes about three hours. Utmost safety precautions are maintained from the time the students arrive until they leave. Sufficient staff are always present to maximize the students’ interest and learning by interacting
with them on a small group basis.
Requirements: The participating educational institution must be approved by
the State of Pennsylvania with teacher certification or its state-approved equivalent.
Schools are responsible for student transportation, payment of fees and meals.
Also, teachers are required to acquire the pre-visit educational packets and prepare the students for what they are
going to experience at Providence Plantation. These are acquired by calling the
Plantation Office.
Desired Accomplishments:
To establish on-site programs for as many area school districts
as possible in the tri-state area. We take our social responsibility seriously
and wish to employ the great history of America’s frontier to help young people learn to follow real heroes and good
role models and become the foundation for our nation’s future. The moral
and religious life of people on the Frontier is implicit in their history (e.g. their study is explicitly stated to be part
of Pennsylvania’s academic curriculum).
Group Study for
Students
Purpose and Functions: To provide
the student with the opportunity to explore some aspect of the 18th century frontier that ordinary classroom or
other briefer presentations could not provide. Some elementary principles of
historical inquiry, including how insights of ethno-history, anthropology and psychology help us in understanding frontier
history. These approaches, of course, are simplified and adapted for young people’s
level of understanding.
Location: Until facilities
are established at Providence Plantation for group-study, only outdoor programs will be offered there and in-door programs
at schools or equivalent facilities.
Desired Accomplishment: To
play an important role in supplementing the historical education offered in school programs.
The result will be to enable students to think for themselves about history, enjoy its insights on human nature and
its contemporary relevance.
Conducting the Program:
How: Staff members of Providence Plantation will contact history teachers, offering and
arranging for the student group study programs and establishing schedules. These
group study programs are of two time lengths: 3 hours and 6 hours. Students are given projects to work on in small groups that will provide them with opportunities to study
in-depth some aspect of frontier history (e.g. from whom surrounding counties, towns, townships or streets obtained their
names and what role these persons played in our frontier history). Each group
will present their findings to the larger group at the end of the period. Presenters
will assist and coordinate each smaller group’s research and presentation. Discussion
on the contemporary relevance of the issues will conclude the study. Teachers
will be responsible for completing evaluation forms of the group study programs and sending them to Providence Plantation.
Who: Providence Plantation
staff members are responsible for setting up all arrangements with the educational institutions for the group study programs,
including collecting of fees, providing pre-group study packets and obtaining evaluation forms from the teachers.
Teacher Training Programs
currently under development
