Lesson: Understanding the Meaning of World Heritage & How it Relates to Philadelphia

Source: Philadelphia World Heritage Tool Kit

Created by: Peggy McGraw, Our Lady of Angels School

Subjects: Technology, Language Arts, Social Studies

Grade Levels: 5-8

View or download this Lesson Plan.

Overview: This lesson will address these questions: 1) Do you have something that is really important to you? 2) Why is it important to you? 3) How would you feel if it was destroyed? 4) What is World Heritage and how does it relate to these questions?

Objectives: Students will be able to define heritage, define World Heritage and how it relates to Philadelphia, learn how to use different presentation tools, become knowledgeable about historical sites in Philadelphia, practice search strategies, research their topics, and share information they gathered about their topic with the class.

The Philadelphia World Heritage Tool Kit

This lesson is one of 29 lessons (K-12, all subjects) in the Philadelphia World Heritage Tool Kit. The goal of the Tool Kit is to help educators and their students develop a transnational analysis in their classrooms by using complex themes of world heritage as a framework to understand global regions across disciplines. These themes include shared architectural, cultural, economic, environmental, political, recreational, religious, and social heritage features.  Real teachers created these lessons and based their work on “best practices” that reflect student collaboration and the broad goals of young people in ways that support care and understanding of others who may be very different in background and history.