The National Park Service has announced its new Teaching with Historic Places website on Youth Summits located at http://www.nps.gov/history/nr/twhp/youthsummits/introduction.html. These Youth Summits engage middle and high school students in onsite learning, community service, and real-world and real-world decision-making in ways that inspire and motivate them. The new TwHP website offers a step-by-step How-To Guide for people and institutions interested in organizing their own Youth Summits, resources for planning summits, sample agendas, and other information.
Youth Summits provide exciting learning experiences for students, teachers, and other participants. These experiences involve students in learning at the places that embody historic and cultural stories. The summits empower students to take what they have learned to develop and share their ideas about actual historic preservation, historical interpretation, heritage tourism, and other management and policy decisions with leaders in these fields. Youth Summits help students become both stewards of community history and historic places and also citizens who will have a lasting impact on policy at the local, state, and national levels. Professional organizations, educators, students, community leaders, and others contribute to make Youth Summits powerful and memorable experiences for all involved.
TwHP uses places listed in the National Register of Historic Places to enhance traditional instruction in history, social studies, civics, and other topics. It also facilitates collaboration among professionals in education, subject-matter disciplines, and historic preservation. The TwHP website (http://www.nps.gov/history/nr/twhp/ )includes a series of on-line curriculum-based lesson plans, professional development materials, information for using historic preservation in service learning activities, and other resources in addition to the new Youth Summit web pages.
The National Park Service requests that you consider either initiating a Youth Summit in your area and/or helping other lead organizations plan and conduct a Youth Summit. We hope that you will find the newly posted Youth Summit web resources helpful in doing so. Please recommend the website to your colleagues, as well.. You may contact either Carol D. Shull, Chief, Heritage Education Services and Interim Keeper, National Register of Historic Places National Park Service at carol_shull@nps.gov or 202.354.2234, or Beth Boland at beth_boland@nps.gov or 202-354-2238, with any questions you may have.
