During my National Park Service years, I was privileged to work on a project initiated by Congress to serve as a national model for heritage education. This included development of the marketing and promotional material to communicate with participating teachers and program supporters.
The initiative was piloted as Heritage Education–Louisiana. Classroom teachers, preservation specialists, and learning professionals were consulted to ensure that the program met preservation ethics and provided professional development for teachers in innovative and evolving educational theology and techniques.
Meeting the needs of classroom teachers who must not only cover curriculum standards and benchmarks, but must also consider high-stakes testing, the program aided teachers in creating integrated lessons and activities that use local cultural resources such as archaeological sites, historic structures, and cultural landscapes as the foundation.
Workshops, Mini Grants, a website and quarterly newsletters were avenues by which the program strove to meet its goals of:
- Enhancing and enriching Pre-Kindergarten through 12th grade curriculum;
- Instilling a sense of cultural stewardship in tomorrow’s leaders; and
- Serving as a national model for other states.
The program lost its congressional funding after the pilot phase, and limped along until about 2010, but it’s still a worthy model for heritage education. Everyone who participated in it saw its value. You can read more about some of the resulting products and activities at its legacy web presence.
Outstanding products include:
- The Community Connections Lessons and Workbook
- Focus on 2000: A Heritage Education Perspective (1997-08)
- The Plantations and Agriculture online lesson module
- Refocusing on Heritage Education: A National Survey (2004-28)
The Summary Report embedded below won an Addy Gold Award for best print publication. It was developed with a matching program brochure and website.
View the Heritage Education Summary Report on Scribd.
View the Heritage Education Brochure on Scribd.
Heritage Lessons was a quarterly newsletter for and about teachers in the program.
View the Summer 2004 Heritage Lessons newsletter on Scribd.
Project Catalog Card
View the program record, role, outcome & trajectory
| Project | Heritage Education–Louisiana |
|---|---|
| Institution | National Center for Preservation Technology and Training, National Park Service |
| Role | Communications and design support for the national-model pilot, including marketing and promotional materials for teachers and supporters. |
| Problem | How could local cultural resources become useful classroom material while helping teachers meet curriculum requirements and build stewardship? |
| Practice | Teacher workshops, mini-grants, web resources, quarterly newsletters, lesson materials, and coordinated print/digital communications. |
| What happened | The pilot produced substantial educational material and professional development but lost congressional funding before becoming the national program originally envisioned. |
| What survives | Reports, brochures, newsletters, lesson products, archived web pages, and related NPS place-based learning practice. |
| Trajectory | Place-based heritage education → public interpretation → later emphasis on connecting people, place, evidence, and knowledge systems. |
| Status | Program ended; model and surviving educational products remain instructive. |
Supporting Documents & Sources
Browse the program report, brochure, newsletters & surviving NPS context
- NCPTT Notes 43 — contemporary program context.
- Heritage Education legacy web presence.
- Heritage Education Summary Report.
- Heritage Education brochure.
- Heritage Lessons — Summer 2004.
- Teaching with Historic Places — current NPS place-based learning context.
Archive Note / Provenance
View what ended, what survived & what the program still suggests
Heritage Education–Louisiana did not survive as the national program its pilot envisioned. The surviving reports, lessons, newsletters, and archived pages preserve the program more fully than its institutional lifespan might suggest.
The larger educational approach proved more durable. Historic places, landscapes, objects, and primary sources can become material for inquiry rather than simply destinations for field trips. The program’s institutional life was short; the idea—that stewardship grows from helping people read and understand the cultural evidence around them—remains relevant.
Critical Questions + Add to the Record
- How do we make knowledge more accessible without losing its meaning?
- What should technology strengthen in us—and what should it never replace?
- Who gets to speak, and whose knowledge is heard?
Application here: the program treated place-based cultural evidence as a way for teachers and students to investigate history themselves, connecting preservation practice to learning rather than presenting stewardship as an abstract civic obligation.
Did you teach with Heritage Education–Louisiana, attend a workshop, receive a mini-grant, or preserve lesson materials from the program? Add firsthand knowledge or surviving documentation.
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