Creating Magic with Second-Grade Explorers

“I can’t thank you enough for the magic that you have helped to create in assisting our students learn the vital foundations of their own community,” wrote Jeffrey Zeiders, supervisor of Social Studies for the Mt. Lebanon School District. “The PHLF is simply the best,” he added.

Every year since 2001, PHLF staff and docents and volunteers from the Mount Lebanon Historical Society, have been leading second-grade students in the Mt. Lebanon School District on a walking tour of Washington Road. Students search for architectural details that match photos on their worksheets and tour the historical society, municipal building, and public safety building. They paste photos of the 105 details they find on Washington Road buildings on a huge map with a timeline that they take back to school to study further. PHLF also provides students with a workbook, Your House, with worksheets on their school, and with a book of community stories, Memory Lane.  Click here to see 15 photos of the award-winning educational program.

PHLF first developed the program for the Mt. Lebanon Public Library and many of the school tours still begin and end there. The program won a state Social Studies award in 2002 and continues each year through funding from the School District, a $3.00 per student tour fee, and the Alfred M. Oppenheimer Memorial Fund of The Pittsburgh Foundation, The Fine Foundation, and the McSwigan Family Foundation that help underwrite PHLF’s educational programs for students, teachers, and adults.