Using local history and environment can bring social studies to earth where students can relate to it through their own families and neighborhoods. When students discover changes close at hand, events come to life and seem relevant. By understanding the development of their own town or city, they can better make connections and comprehend the broader sweep of history. Local study experiences in classroom and field can help provide students with a sense of continuity with their past, as well as a sense of place in the present. These studies can also provide tools to more accurately interpret the world around them today.
Students can learn to evaluate and interpret a variety of sources on local history and geography.
Primary sources include original documents, images such as maps and photographs, material culture, landscape, and oral history. Depending on age level, learning outcomes include research, writing and listening skills, critical thinking, computer literacy, and values clarification. Students can develop abilities to distinguish fact from opinion, weigh evidence and detect contradictions, determine the reliability of sources, and draw inferences, conclusions, and generalizations. Aside from knowledge gained when local history is connected to central themes in American history, there are benefits from understanding the changing makeup of the community, how people worked together or were isolated, and how the community developed its character and values. Students can be challenged to clarify their own values with regard to community participation and citizenship.