Social Studies Spotlight: 75th Anniversary of the Blue Ridge Parkway

During a family day trip to the North Carolina mountains earlier this week, I took lots of photos along the Blue Ridge Parkway. The leaves are changing and the views are, as always, nothing less than glorious. The teacher runs deep inside of me so I inevitably began thinking along the ride how I could “share the view” with our Chatham County Schools students and staff who may not be able to travel to the mountains. At one of the Parkway visitor centers, I noticed Blue Ridge Parkway 75th anniversary t-shirts. Instantly, my “inner teacher” light bulb came on reminding me of the important role the Parkway plays in our state’s history and in relation to science, physical activity, etc.

I showed our webmaster, Ruby Jones, my photographs and, when she got to the one on the viaduct, she exclaimed, “Do you know how many fourth grade social studies textbooks that picture is in?!” Obviously, her inner teacher runs deep, too.

I’m sharing my photos and a link to the 75th Parkway anniversary website. Ruby has created video/slideshows [9.8 MB, mp4, 7.3 MB, mov] that include traditional bluegrass music. Beginning with "Foggy Mountain Breakdown," the slideshow shares scenes from the mountains where many of our bluegrass songs originated.  Listen carefully and you'll hear traditional folk song “Old Joe Clark” as the grand finale. Our hope is that your class and/or your family will enjoy this wonderful part of our state and be inspired to explore the Blue Ridge Parkway more.

If you have Google Earth, Ruby also suggests using its satellite images for a flyover of the mountains to study the terrain. She noted that Chatham County Schools uses a free version that school technicians can assist teachers in downloading. You could create a virtual field trip. (We had a well-attended Discovery Education staff development session during our 2010 Summer Institute that taught this.)

Note: The current Google Earth images are from the spring of 2008, but you could compare/contrast the seasons in a lesson.

Beth McCullough
Public Information Officer