Find Your Park, Museum, Historic Site: Gain a Classroom

Teachers and the public are invited to discover new and innovative ways to engage children and young people in our region’s significant places at Teaching the Hudson Valley’s annual summer institute. This year’s program, Find Your Park, Museum, Historic Site: Gain a Classroom, celebrates the centennial of the National Park Service and will be held July 26-28 at the Henry A. Wallace Education and Visitors Center on the grounds of the Franklin D. Roosevelt Home and Presidential Library in Hyde Park.

Featured speakers are Andrés Henríquez, vice president, STEM Learning in Communities, New York Hall of Science, and composer/musician T. K. Blue who will discuss and play excerpts from his suite, Follow the North Star, based on the life of Solomon Northup, a free black man from Saratoga Springs who was kidnapped and sold into slavery. Northup told his story in the book 12 Years a Slave, which was filmed in 1984 and 2013.

Communities as Classrooms, a panel discussion on day three of the institute, will include elected officials from around the Valley. Confirmed, with more to come, are Torrance Harvey, Newburgh City Council; Steve Noble, mayor of Kingston; and Chris Pryslopski, Rosendale Town Board.

The three-day program includes some 20 workshops, half a dozen field experiences, and several Hyde Park tours. Wednesday field experiences include:

Albany: A Day at the Capital with Partners for Albany Stories, Albany Institute of History & Art, Schuyler Mansion SHS, NYS Capitol, Shaker Heritage Society, Underground RR History Project, plus a walking tour and workshop.

Columbia: Fresh Food Comes from the Farm: Enrichment for science, health, culinary arts, & food literacy, Sylvia Center at Katchkie Farm, Kinderhook.

Dutchess & Columbia: Paddle on the Estuary, Hudson River National Estuarine Reserve, canoe and seine at Tivoli Bays and Stockport Flats.

Putnam: A Multidisciplinary Look at the Valley’s Past, West Point Foundry Preserve and Putnam History Museum, Cold Spring. Tours and More at Boscobel House and Gardens, Garrison.

Ulster: Hudson River STEAM: Tideline Program at Esopus Meadows Preserve.

Westchester: Urban River STEM Experience, Center for the Urban River at Beczak, Groundwork Hudson Valley’s science barge, and the day lighted Sawkill River, Yonkers.