About the Guide

Sense of Our Roots: High Educational Standards

The Discovery Guide is a two-volume, heritage-based educational curriculum designed for primary and secondary students, respectively. To create this unique resource, the Allegheny Ridge Corporation put together a team of teachers, curators, historians, museum educators, preservationists and folklife specialists, all of whom contributed a great deal to the project. This is a site-specific curriculum, in that it offers educational experiences based around existing historical resources which can be visited throughout the Allegheny Ridge Heritage Area in western Pennsylvania.

The Guide is targeted to grades 4 through 7. It is in the form of a loose leaf notebook, so that the pages, sections, lessons and activities can be removed. Each site has its own section, so that the book can be used to familiarize students with any one or all of the sites.

Suggested sites to visit include the Allegheny Portage Railroad National Historic Site, the Railroaders Memorial Museum, the Horseshoe Curve National Historic Landmark, the Johnstown Flood National Memorial and Museum and the Johnstown Incline. If you cannot visit the sites in person, there is a video entitled "People of the Ridge", which takes you to each of the sites without having to leave your classroom. There is also a cassette tape of original songs entitled "Men of Steel - Songs of Pennsylvania's Working Class Heroes" that is informative, as well as fun.

The Discovery Guide adheres to all of the existing and proposed educational standards developed by the Pennsylvania Department of Education. This resource was piloted in 13 schools along the Allegheny Ridge, and was evaluated by the Program of Instructional Systems at the Pennsylvania State University. The recommendations of these studies have now been integrated into the Discovery Guide.

The Allegheny Ridge Corporation believes that all children in the Commonwealth should have a sense of who they are and where they come from. We believe that the Discovery Guide is an important step in that direction.