HISTORIC SITE PROJECT

Virginia is home to some of the oldest and most historically important sites in the United States, since several key events in United States’ history happened in the state. In this assignment, you will get the chance to virtually tour a historic site on Encyclopedia Virginia’s virtual tours page, or, if you live in Virginia, you may physically tour a historic site of your choosing within the state. This project will allow you to dig more deeply into a subject relating to Virginia history of interest to you, and help you discover some interesting places to visit around the state. You will share what you learned in a short presentation, since the ability to communicate in an aesthetically pleasing manner is helpful in many careers paths.
INSTRUCTIONS
Tour a historic site in Virginia, and note things like the architecture, layout, or notable aspects of the site’s physical appearance. Think about how those things connect to its historical significance.
Based off your tour, create a 2-4-minute presentation that focuses on the site’s physical appearance, the history of the event, issue, or topic commemorated by the site, what you learned, and why that site is important. If you virtually toured the site, you will need to read Encyclopedia Virginia’s entry on that site or topic to help answer those questions. If you tour a site in person, be sure to talk to educators or interpreters on site, as you will be able to answer most of those questions from such conversations. To fully answer these questions, you may supplement the tour with additional research from scholarly sources, if needed.
The presentation should include slides with images and/or bullet points of text. A minimum of three slides (plus a bibliography slide) and one image is required in the project. The image(s) can be a photo or a screenshot from the virtual tour on Encyclopedia Virginia.
For this assignment, put any in-text citations that you need to include in parantheses, since footnotes are difficult to insert and read in presentations.
The project can be created in PowerPoint or a slideshow presentation program of your choice. If you need access to a free program to complete this assignment, Adobe Spark Web allows for the creation of beautiful presentations on an Internet browser after you create a free Adobe account, or you can create a presentation in Canva.
Once the slides are created, you will use the record feature to record a 2-4-minute narration that discusses the physical elements of the site, its importance, the history related to it, and what you learned during the tour. Be sure to record some narration on each slide.
The final slide should be a bibliography slide. On it, cite all resources consulted, including the Encyclopedia Virginia’s virtual tours page, with citations in proper Turabian formatting. This slide does not count toward the required three slides. For citation examples, see the Turabian Quick Guide.
Submit the project as a video file. If you used PowerPoint, you can follow instructions found under this assignment’s Resources list to save your project as a .mp4 or .mov video file. If you used Adobe Spark Web or Canva, you may submit the URL that links to your video on that site or download your video on your computer to submit it. If you submit a URL, be sure to set your project to “Public” so that it is viewable without a password.
Review the Historic Site Project Grading Rubric before submitting, to be sure the submission fulfills all the assignment requirements. The project must be 2-4 minutes long (points will be deducted for projects that are longer or shorter than that), be submitted as a video file (.mp4 or .mov), and include at least three slides plus a bibliography slide and one image.