Our Impact
Increasing Understanding of Our Common Humanity through Cultural Heritage Education
Our two cultural heritage education programs – supporting and implementing Project Archaeology, and funding a broad range of professional development workshops and institutes through an annual grant round – benefit educators and students around the nation. IHE is a young organization; 2020 was our first full year of operation, and we became Project Archaeology’s national nonprofit partner in 2022.
IHE SUPPORT FOR CULTURAL HERITAGE EDUCATION 2020 - 2024
Project Funding Secured
$176,848
Educator Workshops
31
Educators Trained
353
Curricula Created/Updated
25
Students Engaged
15,980
PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT FOR HERITAGE EDUCATORS
IHE Organized and Supported Workshops
TEACHERS
What They Say
“Teaching history is important, but I really like the fact we are teaching stewardship.”
- Utah
“I am implementing the Project Archaeology curriculum with my 7th graders, students at a public school on Chicago’s South Side. This group is a particularly challenging one. There’s hasn’t been a teacher since Grade 1 who has made it through the entire year with them. A beginning-of-year test just revealed that most students in this 7th grade class are reading at the 2nd to 4th grade level.”
“Because of these challenges, I decided to start with Project Archaeology right away in week one, thinking that it was just the thing I needed to build students’ confidence and collaborative skills. It has played out as I hoped, allowing students who have deficits to still access the analytical challenges. This curriculum has allowed me to give the students what seems like grade-appropriate rigor while building their below-grade-level skills.”
- Chicago
STUDENTS
OTHERS
“Project Archaeology has brought new joy to my teaching.”
- Maryland
“Unfortunately, science and social studies sometimes get a back seat to reading and math. So to be able to bring them all together in one project that also gets the kids active and problem-solving, and is inquiry-based, is huge.”
- Kansas
“The beauty of inquiry is that the teacher gets to step back and become less a conveyer of knowledge and more of a facilitator of learning. The kids are coming to these understandings, things that they’ll remember for much longer than if I had just told them.”
- Montana
“I feel it is very useful and important to educate community youth on the importance of preserving and protecting the cultural and environmental resources that are in their area. Probably it was a group of teenagers that vandalized (a local petroglyph); perhaps if even one of the people in the group had had a lesson such as this the damage would not have occurred.”
- Colorado
“I had a rough school year and this has been extremely powerful for me. The content is incredible, but the inspirational and motivating impact this has had is so important. I am falling in love with my content again. This has been the best professional development I have attended. Thank you!”
-Oregon
“We can find out more about what our future will be like if we know about our past.”
- 4th Grader
“This is just a great thing, and I’ve really enjoyed learning about it.”
- 4th Grader
“I got excited about this class because we’re always moving and staying engaged, and it is super fun.”
- Middle School Student
“I like archaeology!”
-4th Grader (with a big smile)
“In my experience with the Institute for Heritage Education, I have encountered a goal- and mission-oriented, highly organized entity. In my career, I have seen the impact that heritage education has on protecting sensitive cultural resources, and IHE is a crucial partner (in that effort). Use of the Project Archaeology curricula has made significant progress in addressing the protection of cultural resources across the western United States since the 1990s. IHE’s ability to pull from and further develop these curricula advances the protection of cultural resources.”
- Heritage Education Professional, Colorado
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