From mid-May through mid-August 2009, I worked with the Heritage Education Services (HES) program of the National Park Service (NPS). The goal of HES is to “enable the NPS to be fully engaged in using cultural resources and historic preservation programs to educate people of all ages, promoting public knowledge and support for cultural resources in parks and communities nationwide and the role the NPS plays in their identification, preservation, and interpretation.”

The two main programs within HES are the Teaching with Historic Places program (TwHP) and the Discover Our Shared Hertiage travel itineraries program. This summer, I was able to work on projects within both of these programs. For TwHP, the lesson plan I was most closely involved with was President Lincoln’s Cottage: A Retreat. I also helped with two other lesson plans that deal with President Lincoln (these lessons were being focused on due to the bicentennial of his birth), but those lesson plans are still in production. I was able to participate in the editing, partial rewriting, and digital posting of President Lincoln’s Cottage: A Retreat, and learned just how detailed this process can be.

For the travel itineraries program, I worked most closely on revising the Virginia Main Street Communities travel itinerary, though I also helped with revisions on the Detriot and Route 66 itineraries if necessary. These travel itineraries deal with a variety of places and topics, but all of them include sites listed on the National Register of Historic Places. As time goes on, these itineraries need updating, so much of my work with the travel itineraries included researching, rewriting, and updating existing projects.

Prior to my work with HES, I had little experience with the educational side of public history. I had little experience with educational programs beyond being an interpreter, and this internship certainly exposed me to new things. Additionally, I learned a great deal about the issue of heritage. Heritage is a buzz word in the world of public history these days—from heritage education to heritage tourism, it seems that almost all organizations are trying to get their piece of the heritage pie. Being able to talk to my supervisors Carol Shull and Beth Boland about issues surround heritage and education was incredibly helpful as I tried to make sense of these issues and draw conclusions about my future as a public historian. While I’m not sure that the education side of public history is what I want to do for my long-term career, I do feel that I better understand and appreciate the importance of history education programs. The internship was an invaluable experience in helping me to further define my professional goals.