Thus far 6th graders have visited Portal 31 and the Benham Coal Mining Museum. In class, they have explored news articles from the 1920s and 30s to examine why US Steel wanted eastern Kentucky coal and created their own mock news stories of coal mining coming to the region. Students explored census data related to Harlan County, the state of Kentucky, and coal camp communities like Benham, Lynch, and Cumberland. The designed graphs to display immigration and settlement patterns. Students created photo essays representing life for workers and their families in a coal camp from images archived at Southeast Community and Technical College. Now we’re ready to preserve our history by creating a virtual field trip.