Coal is Why they Came:
Traveling Trunk at Eckley
The
Eckley Miners’ Village Associates recently received a grant from the 1772 Foundation
for the creation of a traveling trunk. The “Coal is Why they Came”
traveling trunk curriculum will offer local 3rd and 4th
grade students a unique opportunity to explore nineteenth century life in a
coal region patch town and the role anthracite coal played in the growth of
America in the 19th century.
This
fall an educational panel comprised of teachers, principals, curriculum
coordinators, and local historians will work with Eckley’s
museum educator to create the curriculum. The trunk curriculum includes an
extensive variety of hands-on items representative of 19th and early
20th century life in northeast
The
trunks inventory will include toys and games, boys and girls clothing, period
school books, mining tools and equipment, and other items that would have been
found in a coal miner’s home. DVDs and story books on anthracite coal mining,
life in a patch town, 19th century transportation, immigration, and
the industrial revolution will help enrich the program. A collection on CDs
will allow the students to hear popular songs of the period.
Curriculum manuals will be supplied to the teachers which will include a
glossary, historical resources, and multidisciplinary lesson plans. The manual
will include four CDs that will contain the entire printed curriculum including
photos and illustrations in digital form.
The
project will be released to any interested public, private, parochial, and home
schools at the start of 2010. The traveling trunk is free of charge to
participating schools. For more information on this project, please call Bill Strassner, Museum Educator at 570-636-2070.