WILDERNESS ROAD IN THE SCHOOLS PROGRAM
The Wilderness Road Regional Museum offers classroom visits by museum staff and interns. Our costumed interpreter will make history come alive through interactive lessons that focuson the role of the Wilderness Road in our nation’s history. The lessons are aligned with state standards for history and social studies. Pre-school lesson align with Virginia’s Foundation Blocks for Early Childhood; lessons for grades k-12 use Virginia SOLs for History & Social Social Science.
Students will learn the history of the museum’s namesake–the Wilderness Road, as they imagine early nineteenth-century travel along one of America’s first highways. Known also as the Great Wagon Road, this early road ran from Philadelphia, down through Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley and Southwest Virginia, then out to Kentucky. Like travelers of the early 1800s, students will “purchase” supplies at the Hance Store, using information from the 1817 Hance Ledger to make their choices.
The purpose of the visit will be two-fold: to make history come alive for students and to introduce them to a key historical site in the New River Valley.
Teachers may schedule classroom visits by e-mailing the museum, or by sending a request to [email protected]