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Teaching About the Virginia Piedmont Heritage Area
Bring Your Local History into the Classroom
Clarke County students visit the Burwell-Morgan Mill as part of our annual Clarke Triangle field trip program.
Call us at (540) 687-6681, email us, or click here to fill out a program request form.
Demonstrating historic open fire cooking and describing life in the Continental Army during the American Revolution.
In-Person or Virtual Classroom Presentations
Each free classroom presentation includes
Director of Education Travis Shaw discusses local Civil War history with Middle School students in Loudoun County.
A professionally trained public historian with classroom experience
Free scavenger hunts for each student
Primary sources and fascinating stories from your area!
Great for Homeschool learning
Any of these presentations can be booked for homeschool groups of 8 or more students
Presentations can be conducted at VPHA headquarters or another mutually agreed upon location
The programs listed below represent just a few of our offerings. We can create custom programs for any historic topic and grade level. Just ask and our professional historians will do the rest!
Elementary School Program Offerings
The First Virginians: Learn about the Native Americans who inhabited the Virginia Piedmont and how they viewed and shaped the landscape over thousands of years.
Virginia and the New Nation: Discover your county’s colonial history, including stories from English descendants from the Tidewater and international immigrants like Germans, Scots-Irish, and Africans. Students will explore themes of Virginia geography and how the landscape of the Piedmont and Blue Ridge shaped agricultural practices and social developments in the 18th century. Finally, the group will learn about local contributions to the Revolutionary War and the early Republic.
The Land of the Free I: For 4th and 5th graders. This program examines enslavement and freedom as it played out in the Heritage Area from 1850-1900, which allows us to explore how enslavement operated in northern Virginia, to discover cases of the Underground Railroad at work in our region, and to see examples of the impact of the Civil War and Reconstruction on local African Americans.
Our Civil War Heritage I: Designed for 4th and 5th graders taking Virginia Studies and customized for each county, this program introduces students to complex local decisions about secession, the role of enslavement, the first experiences with all-out war, freedom seekers, John Mosby’s guerilla war that involved civilians during 1863-65, and the devastation brought in 1864 by the Great Burning Raid. All are brought to life with stories from local historic sites, images, and artifacts.
Aldie Triangle Program (Spring 2024 date TBD): A field trip program for students to examine the impact of the Civil War as they rotate between 3 historic sites near Aldie. Students will visit Aldie Mill, an important 19th century milling complex at Aldie, Mount Zion, a small 1851 country church which was used as a Civil War hospital with and adjacent cemetery and colonial roadbed, and Roundabout Meadows Farm, a hands-on farm operated by the Piedmont Environmental Council.
Reading the Historic Landscape: Students take a guided walk through Gilbert’s Corner Park to discover how people have been using the Piedmont landscape for centuries. The group will learn how Native American trade routes grew into the modern road system we see today, how agriculture defined the region from the 18th to 20th centuries, and how native and non-native species shape our landscape. Also appropriate for Middle School students.
Middle School School Program Offerings
The Land of the Free II: With the end to the Civil War, Northern Virginia found itself undergoing massive change. With the end of enslavement, the destruction of farms, devastation of mills, ruin of transportation infrastructure, and the new life experiences of freedmen, the region would have to re-invent itself. Students use local historic sites and their stories to examine the local experiences of 1865-1888.
Our Civil War Heritage II: This program focuses on the experiences of Loudoun County in 1862. The year encapsulated the area’s Civil War experience—the ever-present military, freedom seekers, battles, and even romance—Leesburg saw what it had never seen before. Using local historic sites and their accounts and stories, this program is an easy way to give your sixth graders a sense of the Civil War as it played out locally.
Virginia in the Great War: America’s involvement in the First World War profoundly changed our society and our position as a global power. Students will learn how members of their local community experienced the war on the home front as well as “Over There.”
Seeking Civil Rights: Snapshots from the Virginia Piedmont Heritage Area: Designed for students taking U.S History II. The Civil Rights movement and the problems that gave rise to it were alive and growing here in the Heritage Area. The landscape of that era and the landmarks of that fight still exist today. Through photography and incidents based in this landscape, VPHA staff present stories that give a sense of the 1940s, 50s, and 60s as the Civil Rights struggle evolved. Each student will receive a history scavenger hunt for their county and information about key sites of the Civil Rights fight that are still a part of their everyday landscape.
High School Program Offerings
Civil War: Looking Beyond the Textbook: Designed for U.S., Virginia History, and Human Geography students. This program is specifically designed for high school students to explore the historic landscape of your county and its human interest stories.
The Land of the Free III: Designed for U.S. and Virginia History students. This program examines the end of the Civil War and the coming of Reconstruction as it played out in this region. The program explores the reaction of returning Confederates, Union occupation, the Freedman’s Bureau, the creation of public schools, and the introduction of Jim Crow laws. Teachers receive a document-based question (DBQ) for their Advanced Placement (AP) students based on the program.
Seeking Civil Rights: Snapshots from the Virginia Piedmont Heritage Area: Designed for 11th graders in Loudoun, Clarke, or Fauquier counties taking U.S and Virginia History. Through photography and incidents based in that historic landscape, Heritage Area staff will present a collage of stories that give a sense of the 1940s, '50s, and '60s as the Civil Rights struggle evolved. Each student will receive a history scavenger hunt for their county as well as information about key sites of the Civil Rights fight that still are a part of their everyday landscape.
Digital Education Resources
VPHA offers a wide range of digital content designed to bring local history to you! Resources include blog articles, videos, and more, covering topics ranging from the earliest inhabitants of the heritage area through the twentieth century.
Scavenger Hunts in the Virginia Piedmont Heritage Area
Scavenger hunts are now available for Loudoun, Clarke, and western Prince William counties. Each with a map and careful directions for the driver, these scavenger hunts get your students and their families out into the history of your county, visiting historic sites, villages, and back roads that make our region unique. You can download the scavenger hunts here on the website. They are also available in booklet form: they are given to all students when we visit your classroom with a program. They make a good extension to what you do in class and a great “extra credit” family activity.
It Happened Near Me: Pieces of the Past From Where We Live
Want to work some local history examples into your U.S. History class so students see how their local area connects to what they are studying? Need to have your students work more with primary sources and photographs to develop their analysis skills? You'll find the materials for "It Happened Near Me" activities here.