Ohio History is my favorite course to teach because the small size allows a very high level of student interaction. This combined with the nature of the topic also allows the class to visit sites that correspond with the course content. The class consists mostly of future Social Studies teachers from the Teacher Education Department.

2022

This replacement tree (the original was struck by lightning in the 1960s) was just a twig when Ohio History students first began touring the site.

Ohio History Connection

Adena Mansion

We had a little plot twist at Adena Mansion and Gardens. A tree blocked the only entrance and delayed our trip 30-minutes.

We nearly always eat at Thurman's Café on our Columbus trip which includes the Statehouse, Ohio History Connection. These are the remnants of falling short of consuming the famous Thurman Burger

At the Scioto River on the site of the canal feeder

Hopewell Mounds

2021

This group went to a few places we do not usually get to including Cornstalk's Town, which is a few miles from Logan's Elm. Students are standing where the prisoners ran the gauntlet or were burned at the stake. Often this was in retaliation for events such as the Gnadenhutten Massacre and the massacre of Mingo Chief Logan's family

Camp Charlotte is about four miles (as the crow flies) from Logan's Elm and is the place where the significant treaty was signed after the Battle of Point Pleasant in 1775. It was hugely significant as an impetus in the rush of settlers that poured into what is now Ohio.

Understanding the importance of Mingo Chief Logan a runner was sent the short distance where Logan's cabin stood to try to persuade him to join the treaty. It was there that he offered his famous lament. A stone marker there (At Logan's Elm) has a list of colonial military who were present at Camp Charlotte. It reads like a Who's Who list of colonial Revolutionary Era figures.

My wife makes fun of me for asking for asking for a a moist towelette at BBQ places. She says it is a wet wipe. This is from the Old Canal Smokehouse. I rest my case!

2020

COVID - UGH. The course and all field trips were all virtual. Students were able to "go" more places but it was not the same.

2019

2018

All Ohio History courses visit Adena Mansions and Gardens, the home of Thomas Worthington (Father of Ohio Statehood)

After touring the museum, our class visited the archives at Ohio History Connection. None of the students had ever been to an archive. Since it is not normally part of most teacher education programs, few 7-12 history teachers understand the process of historical research by the historians they read and fewer still have been to an archive and experienced the joy of sifting through boxes of documents.

After visiting the microfilm room and viewing some of the Thomas Worthington Papers

We paged several boxes of canal documents including receipts of goods that traveled the canal and surveyors notebooks

One student found a receipt that detailed the goods that came through Circleville (Home of OCU) between 1855-1856

The excitement that crossed his face is one of the joys of getting future history teachers into archives. Several said they want to come back on their own.

Our combined Ohio History / Honors Field Trip

2017

The quantity of historically significant places right in the middle of everyday buildings and roads always leaps out at my students. This is a good example: the entrance to a major WWI camp (Camp Sherman) on a side road right in the middle of Chillicothe.

2016

2015

Those Iron Man Competitions will get you. Right...Justin?

2014

Two real tragedies

2013