The Mower County Historical Society and the Hormel Historic Home will be improving educational offerings to local schools through a grant from the Minnesota Historical and Cultural grants program.

The project has been financed in part through the Minnesota Historical Society and the Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund. To develop the curriculum, the organizations will be working with a curriculum expert and a committee of local teachers to create experiences that will meet both social studies and reading standards set by the Minnesota Department of Education, mainly focusing on Kindergarten through eighth-grade standards.

The project includes meetings with area teachers to find out current curriculum needs and

development of a list of useful resources to meet those needs.

“Our goal is find out what is useful to area teachers through tours at our sites or presentations where we can bring artifacts and information into the classrooms,” said Laura Helle, executive director of the Hormel Historic Home.

MCHS Executive Director Dustin Heckman added, “I think this is a great opportunity for both HHH and MCHS to provide more educational opportunities for both teachers and students.”

Helle and Heckman hope to finish researching this project by late spring to early summer. This will allow them to apply for implementation grants to create the needed materials and to test them before launching the new curriculum packages for the 2013-2014 school year.