A 110-year-old school museum in Sanford soon will become the home of the new Â鶹ӳ»´«Ã½ Center for Public History, where university students will learn how to preserve, interpret and teach the past.<\/p>\n
A two-year lease was signed last week with the Seminole County School Board to start classes and programs at its Student Museum in July. The 1902 building in the middle of the city\u2019s historic district was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1984.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Student Museum building is an ideal site because of its own rich heritage as well as the City of Sanford\u2019s significant architectural history and grassroots historic-preservation movement,\u201d said Rosalind Beiler, Â鶹ӳ»´«Ã½\u2019s director of Public History.<\/p>\n
The new center at 301 W. 7th St. is intended to foster a close connection between the community and Â鶹ӳ»´«Ã½\u2019s research projects. \u201cBy definition, public history engages community partners,\u201d Beiler said.<\/p>\n
The university will blend the old and the new with its plans for the museum. While maintaining the museum\u2019s current offerings \u2013 such as leading 4th graders on field trips through the museum to learn about Florida\u2019s past \u2013 the university will teach its history students how to use new-media techniques of audio, video and digital technologies to create virtual exhibits, artifact databases, podcasts and other projects.<\/p>\n
\u201cThrough this partnership, we will preserve an important link between today\u2019s tech-savvy students and how our ancestors lived and worked more than a century ago,\u201d said Â鶹ӳ»´«Ã½ Provost and Executive Vice President Tony G. Waldrop. \u201cThe museum also is an outstanding laboratory that will prepare our students for careers in a field that helps all of us connect with and learn from our past.\u201d<\/p>\n
Beiler said the university chose Sanford because the city is already committed to historic preservation through the Community Redevelopment Association, Historic Preservation Board and Sanford Historic Trust. The university is planning to hold public workshops and seminars at the Student Museum, along with gathering oral histories.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis partnership preserves an important part of history for Sanford, Seminole County, students and the whole community,\u201d said Bill Vogel, Seminole\u2019s schools superintendent. \u201cThis is so important to the whole preservation efforts of Sanford. Because of Â鶹ӳ»´«Ã½, this could be a centerpiece.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Student Museum is one of the few surviving examples in Florida of school architecture at the turn of the 20th century. The 20,000-square-foot Romanesque Revival brick building opened as Sanford\u2019s first high school and became a grammar school in 1911. In 1984, it was given the title of Student Museum and Center for the Social Studies, and it has since served as an interpretive center and a hands-on teaching museum.<\/p>\n
Â鶹ӳ»´«Ã½ students will be able to experience the museum\u2019s 1902 classroom with original woodwork and slate boards, a portrait of then-President Theodore Roosevelt and other period artifacts; a Native American room that represents a 1,200-year-old Timucua village; and a pioneer room with a log cabin and tools. The museum also features Grandma\u2019s Attic, where visitors can handle old household items, try on vintage clothes, learn how to churn butter and make candles; the Georgetown and Crooms High School exhibits, which feature information about the city\u2019s African-American community; and other displays.<\/p>\n
Behind the museum is a teaching garden that provides students the opportunity to plant and identify vegetables grown at the turn of the last century. There also are Florida native plants, antique roses, a wildflower meadow, field crops and other horticultural displays. Across the street from the museum is the city\u2019s historic tree grove in Touhy Park, which contains about 70 trees that are associated somehow with people, places and events around the country. There are sycamores, magnolias, maples, walnuts and others from Valley Forge, Gettysburg, Mount Vernon, Ellis Island, the Alamo and elsewhere.<\/p>\n
\u201cKids thrive on these historical projects, and teachers are going to flock to the center,\u201d said Anna-Marie Cote, deputy superintendent for Seminole schools.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A 110-year-old school museum in Sanford soon will become the home of the new Â鶹ӳ»´«Ã½ Center for Public History, where university students will learn how to preserve, interpret and teach the past. A two-year lease was signed last week with the Seminole County School Board to start classes and programs at its Student Museum in July. The 1902 building in…","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":32369,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"template-twocol.php","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"lazy_load_responsive_images_disabled":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":"","_wp_rev_ctl_limit":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[6749,5298,6747],"tu_author":[],"class_list":["post-32368","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-community","tag-rosalind-beiler","tag-tony-g-waldrop","tag-touhy-park"],"yoast_head":"\n