Documenting the American South

Docsouth Home
The Digital Blue Ridge Parkway

K-12 Unit and Lesson Plans

The "Driving Through Time" project offers K-12 educators the opportunity to immerse their students in the extensive history of the Blue Ridge Parkway’s development. Many primary source materials, including photographs, maps, letters, and newspaper articles, have been digitized and are available online through this project. Additionally, several essays called "Overlooks" have been developed and included in the project. Of note are the planning maps and ownership records, rich with historical information, which afford students the opportunity to critically analyze the relationship between North Carolina and the Blue Ridge Parkway and to interpret the Parkway's effect on the surrounding land and communities.

Combining effective educational practices with today’s technology, Katy Vance, a former high school teacher and graduate research assistant on the "Driving Through Time" project, partnered with Dr. Cheryl Mason Bolick of the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill’s School of Education to develop a wide body of lesson plans and educational resources centered around the Blue Ridge Parkway and utilizing the primary source materials made available by the "Driving Through Time" project.