Montana Heritage Project

The Montana Heritage Project is a school-based programme that involves students getting to know their community by conducting interviews with local community members. The project helps bring students together from around the state of Montana in the United States and encourages them to share and thereby preserve their heritage with one another.

"Since 1995, ... students [from Libby, Montana] have been involved in the Montana Heritage Project, an organization with a strong online presence that works throughout Montana to spread project-based, community-centered models of education. English and history classes use the Heritage model, discarding textbooks, and teaching through the lens of local history. At the end of the year, students invite community members to a Heritage Night, where they present what they've learned about the town's cultural heritage.

In Libby, where local history and logging are synonymous, Heritage classes have been exploring aspects of the town's logging industry for eight years. To better understand logging's place in Libby, and Libby's place in the world, they have collected historic photos and stories, interviewing former and present mill workers at their homes and on the job. 'It was very intriguing to actually see these people at work," says student Brad Mohr. 'When they're at work, they're the most honest with you, I think, because they don't think about [being interviewed] as they're standing there next to the machine.' Because of this hands-on research, the 2003 Heritage class was able to respond to the mill closing by giving workers a record of their importance in the community."

The students use the ALERT learning model to construct their projects: Ask, Listen, Explore, Reflect, and Transform (or Tell).

"In the 'Ask' phase, students develop an essential question, such as, 'How did World War II affect women in Townsend?' (The Heritage Project partners with the Library of Congress Veterans History Project to interview Montana war veterans.) In the 'Listen' phase, they collect information from various sources in the community. They then follow, or 'Explore', the different paths suggested by this information.

The 'Reflect' stage is essential for building understanding. Student Kyle Koehler of Libby, for instance, noticed during his research that in historic issues of the local paper, there was often very little local news. Even on the day of the town's fierce 1910 fire, the front page news was of the big cities. In reflection, he put this puzzle together with what he had learned about Libby at this time. He realized that this was a mark of Libby's small size and isolation -- everyone in town already knew about the fire. They wanted to know what was happening in the faraway capital.

Students use the 'Tell' stage to put together a final product, often using digital photography, PowerPoint presentations, desktop publishing, and the Heritage Project site to share their work with others."

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Click here for the Montana Heritage Project website.