Photo Credit: Science Club for Girls & Lena Currie

THE 6 UNIT CURRICULUM

UNIT 1 | UNDERSTANDING COMMUNITY AND THE BUILT ENVIRONMENT Students participate in exercises to learn about the many ways community is defined, understand what the built environment is and contemplate how architectural features reflect or reject values and needs of the community. UNIT 2 | UNDERSTANDING HISTORIC PRESERVATION, EQUITY AND SIGNIFICANCE Students practice classic research, debate and presentation techniques to investigate the difference between our built and natural environment and to learn the benefits of historic preservation. Students discuss how an equity lens helps to ensure all communities and cultures are represented in historic preservation work. Students are given a range of examples to evaluate and apply criteria for determining significance. UNIT 3 | ARCHITECTURE AND HISTORIC PRESERVATION Students learn what architecture is, and how architecture expresses different stories and connects us to the past. The students will be exposed to key architectural skills, including the iterative design process, using geometric shapes, determining gross area, perimeter, net area and volume, working in 3D and 2D, creating 2D bubble diagrams, recognizing patterns and creating tessellations. They also explore the concepts of scale and ratio. UNIT 4 | STRUCTURAL ENGINEERING AND HISTORIC PRESERVATION Students gain exposure to the language and practice of structural engineers, including identifying basic structural concepts of a building and making connections to the human body, learning how loads travel through a building or object, basic common properties of building materials, and how engineers use math and science to solve problems. Students practice principles of loath path and resistance in a model bridge-building and stress testing exercises. UNITS 5 & 6 | HISTORIC PRESERVATION COMMUNITY BASED PROJECTS Students work in pairs or teams to identify a local community and research the needs of that community. Students then develop a compelling narrative and design concept for the re-use of a local historic property or site based upon data reflecting community needs, such as for recreation, affordable housing, or cultural education. Teams will create floor plans, 3D physical models using materials provided in their “kits”, renderings/graphics and final presentations to local stakeholders (family members, school staff, design professionals, community representatives, and political leaders).

Curriculum Development Partners:

Adaptations and Implementations
This curriculum reinforces fundamental science and technology academic standards through a preservation lens and engages students with locally relevant topics and activities that invite students to think critically about the building, people and places that matter to them. The entire curriculum has been adapted to align with state-specific academic standards in Massachusetts and Indiana, and portions of the program have been piloted in Boston, Massachusetts (through collaboration with Science Club for Girls) and in Detroit, Michigan (through collaboration with ACE Mentoring of Southeastern Michigan). The program pilot in Indiana is tentatively planned for Fall 2024. Our team is working to bring this program to Washington, Texas, Georgia, Maine and California in the coming years.  

Overall Program Impact
So far the STEAM Through Heritage Preservation Curriculum, with modifications as required to suit the context of the implementation, has been successfully taught in Massachusetts, Indiana, Michigan and Washington State. Our team is working to bring the program to Texas, Georgia, Maine and California in the coming years.

BOSTON, MA | SPRING 2023 | KINDERGARTEN TO GRADE STUDENTS
540 STUDENTS

Science Club for Girls’ Spring Club adapted hands-on activities included in the heritage STEAM curriculum adapted for use in their 8 week-long afterschool camp. Through these daily guided activities, the students explored concepts like building strong foundations with everyday objects, understanding ratios and proportions, and creating structures that can hold heavy loads! The camp culminated in each participant visualizing, designing, and modeling their own scaled “dream homes”, which helped students to develop a personal under-standing of how the built environment can reflect and support community needs.

Here are some of the sample activities from this camp:

All About Insulation
Go Build a Structure!
Let’s Make a Floor Plan!

Check out this camp on SCFG’s Website & Social Media:
Science Club for Girls Website
Facebook
LinkedIn

Implementation Partners:
  

DETROIT, MI | 2022-2023 | HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS
20+ STUDENTS 

In partnership with ACE Mentoring of Southeastern Michigan and the Detroit Landbank Authority, APTI helped to develop the 2022 – 2023 student design prompt to adaptively reuse and restore a modernist 1960’s home in Historic Russell Woods, designed by Nathan Johnson. Working within the ACE framework, APTI members joined local engineers, architects, trades and stakeholders to explore the interdisciplinary considerations involved in the preservation, restoration and reuse of existing architecturally significant buildings.

See below for additional information on this program:
One Page Summary—STEAM Detroit

Implementation Partners:

WEST LAFAYETTE, IN | ONGOING | GRADES 5-8 With the support of an Indiana Humanities Grant, academic and industry preservation professionals in the Greater Lafayette Area collaborated with our group to adapt the heritage STEAM curriculum to incorporate local historic buildings and places and for future pilot in public/charter schools. The curriculum was completed in Spring 2023 and is tentatively scheduled to be piloted in Fall 2024. 

See below for some examples of how the curriculum was modified to provide locally relevant context to Indiana students:
Indiana Curriculum Adaptation

We are currently seeking educators in the Greater Lafayette area to help us refine and pilot the curriculum. Please contact the group co-chairs if you, or someone you know, is interested. 

Implementation Partners:
 

JOIN US! 

Interested in the Heritage STEAM Curriculum and want to learn more? Reach out to any of our committee members and check out some of our presentations: 

"Push and Pull: A Dialog of Preserv Educ & the Profession". Part 3-Currie, Carpenter Bernier, Hayles

Engaging the Next Generation of Preservationists

UMASS+ BRUTALISM GRADUATE STUDENT RESEARCH FELLOWSHIP

This is a student summer fellowship of 14 weeks of research in collaboration with the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and APT. It seeks to demonstrate (through a real-world case study) how historically appropriate renovations and deep energy retrofits are critical to curbing carbon emissions associated with New England's vast stock of architecturally significant "brutalist" buildings. The research will be published in APTIV Technical Bulletin and Student presentation at the 2024 APTNE/APTI Annual Symposium. 

For more information, access the flyer here.