HERITAGE EDUCATION
The Historic Preservation Review Board is committed to the concept of Heritage Education in the classroom and actively using local history as a teaching tool for all age groups. The Review Board is interested in providing heritage education information and resources to Boone County teachers.
“River Born, Kentucky Bred"
The Boone County Historic Preservation Review Board is pleased to announce the completion of River Born, Kentucky Bred, a heritage education curriculum for Boone County, Kentucky. The curriculum is a realization of two years of planning and research. Designed for the 4th Grade, it is the first of a number of curricula that will explore Boone County history.
River Born, Kentucky Bred was sponsored by the Boone County Historic Preservation Review Board and funded by Boone County Fiscal Court and a grant through the Kentucky Heritage Council. The unit was developed by an educational consultant and guided by an advisory group of local educators, Review Board members, preservation professionals, and interested citizens. The Advisory Group determined program priorities, applied requirements of the Kentucky Department of Education, developed a list of sites and topics, and worked to create a series of lessons that complement Kentucky’s 4th Grade curriculum guidelines.
River Born, Kentucky Bred explores the development of Boone County from 500 million years ago when it lay beneath the ocean to just before the Civil War, when slavery was still legal in Kentucky. Individual lessons focus on Boone County geology, the paleontology of Big Bone Lick, Native Americans, early settlers, Kentucky statehood and the formation of Boone County, river life and making a living along it, river travel, river commerce, and slavery. Many unique locations are used to tell the story of Boone County’s development. In addition to Big Bone Lick, River Born, Kentucky Bred visits Dinsmore Homestead, Gunpowder Creek, river towns like Petersburg, Belleview, and Constance, and Maplewood Farm, which served as the backdrop for Toni Morrison’s novel Beloved.
Each of the 12 lessons includes introductory text and supplementary reading materials. Teacher instructional strategies and student objectives are steered by a series of guiding questions such as “How was the Ohio River both a highway and barrier for slaves and slave owners?” Students are engaged through reading, writing, hands-on activities, and field trips. Each lesson comes with a learning kit, which includes teaching resources, supplementary texts, videos, and period objects ranging from replicated stone tools to square iron nails. River Born, Kentucky Bred is an ambitious beginning to what will be an ongoing commitment to heritage education by the Boone County Historic Preservation Review Board.
Learning kits for River Born, Kentucky Bred are available on a temporary loan basis to teachers in public, private, and home schooling settings in Boone County. Since funds permitted development of only one copy of each learning kit, educators are encouraged to make arrangements to reserve kits as early as possible. The text of River Born, "Kentucky Bred may be viewed by downloading this Adobe PDF file." For more information or to review the unit and learning kits in person, please contact Matt Becher, Rural/Open Space Planner, at 859-334-2111 or mbecher@boonecountyky.org.
