Cold Spring Village’s Education Program in Full Gear

The Historic Cold Spring Village school programs swing into gear soon after the summer draws to an end. Offering in-school visits, distance learning programs, and field trips, Historic Cold Spring Village really is a museum for all seasons. Recently, the HCSV Education Director, Jim Stephens, spent three days at Middle Township Elementary School #1 where he delivered the program, An Early American School Day, to all of its second grade classes as he has done every year since 2001. The second graders learned what their lives would have been like 200 years ago- from the subjects they would have studied to the games they would have played. The Village offers in-school programs like this free of charge to all Cape May County schools and surrounding counties for a small fee.
Stephens has been running the education program for over a decade. He holds a BA in American History from Montclair State University, an MA in American History from Monmouth University and is a New Jersey certified social studies teacher. This past spring, Stephens and the Village interpretive staff welcomed a record 3,000 students on field trips during May and early June when the Village opens exclusively for schools. “It looks like we are on track to surpass that amount with the number of students already registered for 2013 field trips,” Stephens said. “We might need to open a week earlier this year.”
Though located in the southernmost part of New Jersey, Historic Cold Spring Village’s educational reach extends across the state. Since the late 1990’s, HCSV has offered distance learning programs in topics as diverse as the origin and early history of the flag of the United States, the challenges of open-hearth cooking, and the life and experiences of a Union soldier during the Civil War. “In a time of budget cuts, distance learning is a great way for schools to inexpensively take advantage of what the Village has to offer,” Stephens said. “We’ve worked with local schools, as well as with classes as far away as Texas and Wisconsin.” This fall, Stephens delivered the distance learning program, Past versus Present, to each of Linwood Elementary School’s five fourth grade classes. Using real historical artifacts, Stephens compared contemporary everyday objects like the flashlight or digital camera with their Early American equivalents, the lantern and daguerreotype.
For more information about the museum’s education program, please visit www.hcsv.org/education or call (609) 898-2300, ext. 17. Historic Cold Spring Village is a non-profit, open air living history museum that portrays the daily life of a rural South Jersey community of the Early American era. Its mission includes the preservation of 26 historic Cape May County buildings, history education and promoting heritage tourism. During the summer months, interpreters and artisans in period clothing preserve the trades, crafts and heritage of “the age of homespun.” The Village is located on Route 9, three miles north of Victorian Cape May and a mile and a half west of the southern end of the Garden State Parkway.