Teaching Local and State History: Why It Matters and How to Make It Engaging

As an educator, teaching students about local and state history is an opportunity to foster greater community awareness. Students naturally gravitate toward history lessons that include exciting events, and exploring local historical moments helps them connect their current lives with the past. In fact, history lessons are a great time to bring different generations together to cultivate closer family and neighbor relationships.

On top of helping students to contextualize larger events that occur nationally and globally, you’ll find that bringing a more local lens to history lessons also encourages more civic engagement today and in the future. Understanding why local and state history lessons matter and how to make them more engaging for students turns your classroom into an opportunity to change the world together.

Helping Students Connect History to Familiar Places

If you find that students tend to groan when it’s time for history lessons, it’s likely that they simply need help connecting past events to their current lives. Honing in on local historical events and places helps them see for themselves how things that happened long ago can still influence their lives today.

For instance, you might read a trade book about a battle or other type of historical event that occurred in your state. Talking about what that location looks like today or how the decisions that were made impact the local community adds a humanized element to the lesson that resonates with young students. If possible, bring artifacts into the classroom that you might be able to borrow from a local library. Or, you might be able to take a field trip to a museum in your city that focuses on the history lessons you are covering in your unit.

Using Community Landmarks and Events as Teaching Tools

Stepping outside of the classroom is always an effective way to enrich the curriculum. Think about the landmarks and events that are occurring in your city or state. You might explore upcoming cultural events, such as plays or museum exhibits that you can incorporate into your lesson plans. Upcoming community celebrations can also serve as inspiration for history lessons. For instance, your students might enjoy participating in an event that honors veterans in the community.

Your class might also be able to take a walking tour of the city to visit local landmarks. Alternatively, you could take a virtual tour of a major historical landmark that fits into your history lesson. Turning real-life experiences into teachable moments transforms history lessons into more than just another read through a traditional textbook. In fact, reading a biography of a historical figure from your state’s history is likely to spark interest that could even turn into a project-based learning experience later in the unit.

Incorporating Maps, Photos and Simple Research

Bringing maps and other visual aids into your lessons not only teaches valuable navigation skills, but you’ll also be including more hands-on learning opportunities that make history lessons stick. Comparing and contrasting past and present maps of your city and state helps students gain a new perspective on how things change over time. You can plan similar activities with photos, especially ones depicting old buildings or farm land where students may be living or spending time at local attractions today.

Many cities have local museums that provide a simple way for students to do research. Or, you might be able to visit a municipal website that offers information about the history of your town. Local trade books might provide stories about past historical events that your students can use for independent and group research projects.

Planning Activities That Spark Student Curiosity 

In the past, many schools only taught history through dry textbooks that focused on names and dates. While you’ll still want to cover core concepts in your curriculum, it’s much easier to get students to remember those important people when they hear about them through stories. Local storytellers often include historical figures and events in their trade books. One activity that you can do is invite students to reenact a historical event that you read about in a book.

Building story maps of the places you read about in your classroom’s history books is another fun way to get students involved in asking questions about past locations and events. If possible, take a walking tour through significant parts of your community. Being able to see monuments and tour historical buildings in person turns an ordinary history lesson into a memorable adventure.

You may also want to invite members of your community to visit your class to talk about their experiences. Veterans love to connect with students, or you might have a senior citizen who once taught in an early school in your community, who could talk about what classrooms were like in the past. Giving students real people to talk to can lead to projects such as conducting interviews that can then be turned into class books or virtual presentations.

Adapting Lessons for Different Grade Levels 

History lessons should always be kept age and grade-level-appropriate. Naturally, a kindergartener might not be able to grasp the significance of a local battle. But, they might be able to understand how their playground now sits where a ranch used to exist.

Finding books that teach at the proper grade levels can help you make sure that the lessons are easily adaptable to the different ages of students in your classroom. As you differentiate the learning, you can use similar techniques for project planning. For instance, a first grader might be eager to illustrate a story about a historical event. Meanwhile, a sixth grader might enjoy creating a board game that walks the players through events or places in local history.

Making history meaningful through helping students make local connections is important for successfully teaching essential concepts. As you create your lesson plans, think about the local landmarks and unique history of your state that students will find interesting. Bringing history to life makes learning fun, and you’ll enjoy spending time with your students as they gain a deeper appreciation for the people and places that contribute to making their community and state unique.