Read the full story from Rural Schools Collaborative here.
“At first glance, random piles of candy, centuries-old nurses uniforms, and a lighthouse might not have much in common. For a group of high school students in eastern North Carolina’s rural Washington County, however, those three things and many more components made up an unique and exciting Place-Based Education project. Over three days, led by East Carolina University (ECU) faculty, the students engaged in a deep exploration of how history is constructed and interpreted, using local resources right in Washington County as the vehicle for their studies.
The idea for this project began in the early days of the 2025-26 school year, when Dr. Jerry Johnson, Director for ECU’s Rural Education Institute (REI), brought together a few faculty members to brainstorm ways to engage local school partners (ECU’s Rural Education Institute anchors RSC’s Southeast Regional Hub). Chief among those were Dr. Mary Huffman, Assistant Professor in ECU’s Elementary, Middle, and Secondary Education Department, and Dr. Tyler Youngman, an Assistant Professor in Library Science. As conversations developed, Washington County School District, which recently joined ECU’s network of Community Schools, became a perfect fit for their early ideas.
The ECU team began conversations with Washington County Schools, with Wysonza James, Community School Coordinator for ECU’s REI, serving as a main point of contact at Washington County. Dr. Youngman recalls that “It was a dialogue. We didn’t come in with any kind of plan, we didn’t come in with a predetermined outcome or goal. We just wanted to have a conversation… That approach to creating this curriculum came from a place of partnership and speaking with the community and school, rather than speaking for them.” The result was a focus on understanding history, both through an exploration of local places and exercises aimed towards conceptualizing history as a discipline and everyday facet of life.”