HERITAGE HILL STATE HISTORICAL PARK

Heritage Hill is a living history museum devoted to the preservation of its buildings and artifacts

and the interpretation of the history of Northeast Wisconsin and its people. Our purpose is to

provide an educational experience that encourages visitor awareness, understanding and

appreciation of the history of the region.

Kathryn Terpstra

Education Supervisor Oversee the education department Manage, supervise & train education staff Aides in the development of park

programming Background is in museum studies

Masters in Archaeology and Museum Studies

What programs do we offer?

Spring School Tours Discovery Days Winter Tours Learning Lab Programs Outreach Programs Home School Programs Discovery History Camps Day Care Programs Heritage Kits Adult Workshops

Spring School Tours

Our popular field trips offer your students a good overview of Wisconsin history starting with the 17th century and on into the 20th century. Historic Guides will challenge your students to think of what it would have been like to live as a fur trader, a farmer, a soldier or a tradesman.

Discovery Days

Area specific programs that will immerse your students into how past peoples lived Life on a Belgian

Farm Encounter Fort

Howard Explore the Fur

Trade

Winter Tours

This popular field trip offers your students a glimpse of the life in the harsh winters of Wisconsin. Historic Guides will lead your students in exploring life-ways of the past and comparing them to today.

Learning Lab Programs

Ever wonder what it was like to go to school in early Wisconsin, or how they put together log homes before the days of modern construction tools? Our learning lab programs offer students the chance to participate in hands-on activities while staying in the rustic-appearing, yet modern facility that is our Learning Labs.

Outreach Programs

Have one of our historic interpreters visit your classroom Wool: From Sheep

to Shawl An Immigrant’s

Journey A Fur Traders Tale A Soldier’s Story

Home School Programs

Cooking with Wood Mrs. Tanks Art Class Laura’s Day Historic Dancing Sewing a Housewife 1848 School House Building a Log Cabin Orienteering Exploring the Waterways The Pilgrims Scavenger Hunts

Discover History Camp

We offer 2 & 3 day camps during the summer Life of Laura Taste of History Discovering Nature Women Throughout

Time Men Throughout

Time Interpreters

Apprentice

Day Care Programs Heritage Kits

Life at Fort Howard

Work and Play on the Farm

Fire and Fun in Small Town

Bienvenue a La Baye

Civil War Soldiers This kit contains objects,

documents and accompanying activities related to Civil War soldiers. Reproduction documents, photographs, poetry, a De Pere soldier’s letters and music are included. The kit focuses on five topics: Enlistment, Daily Life, Photographs, Writings and Religion. Each topic includes activities that can be used separately or combined to supplement your unit.

Adult Workshops and Programs

Basket Making Canning Ornament Making Victorian Tea

What is Interpretation?

Interpretation is an educational activity which aims to reveal meanings and relationships through the use of original objects, by first hand experience and illustrated media rather than simply to communicate factual information.

 Freeman Tilden, Interpreting Our Heritage,

1957

Interpretation facilitates a connection between the interests of the visitor and the meanings of the resource.

National Park Service, 1996

Interpretation is a communication process that forges emotional and intellectual connections between the interests of an audience and the inherent meanings in the resource.

 National Association for Interpretation,

2000

Interpretation is conversation, guided interactions, or any communication that enriches the visitor experience by making meaningful connections between the messages and collections of our institutions and the intellectual and emotional world of the visitor.

 The Interpreters Training Manual for

Museums, 2004

Tilden’s Principles of Interpretation

Interpretation that does not relate to the personality or experience of the visitor is sterile.

Interpretation is revelation based on information.

Interpretation is an art (and combines many arts).

Interpretation is provocation, not instruction.

Interpretation should aim to present the whole rather than a part and should address the whole person rather than any one phase.

Interpretation for children is not a dilution of an adult presentation; it is a fundamentally different approach