The Park has been digital resources that educators can use in the classroom. Local schools can also reserve an in-person classroom visit from a Park Ranger, or if further away, a digital visit. Please see the links below for more information about reserving a classroom visit, lesson plans, and other digital resources. Video Resources:The Park's YouTube page provides dozens of videos that investigate the history of the Blackstone River Valley.
Classroom VisitsThe Park offers ranger-led classroom visits for schools in Rhode Island. If you are interested in having a staff member come to your class, please email Park Ranger Allison Horrocks or call at 401-318-4883. Lesson PlansThe Rhode Island Historical Society, in partnership with NPS, created lesson plans designed to meet the curriculum standards for fourth grade students in Rhode Island and across the country. Please see the tabs below to access the lesson plans: 
Alice (Hadfield) Timperley and Oral His
Oral histories are excellent ways to preserve the past. Students will learn the story of Alice Hadfield, a resident of Ashton. 
Conflicting Values: Brown and Ballou
This lesson plan invites students to consider the conflicting views of leading abolitionists in the years leading to the Civil War. 
Culture and Community
This lesson highlights the importance of recognizing and celebrating the diversity of those who lived in the Valley. 
History Detective: First Strike
In this lesson, students will analyze primary source documents about America's First Strike in 1824 in Pawtucket, RI 
Innovation in Transportation
This lesson will have students identify various modes of transportation used from the 1800s into the 1900s. 
Learning about Mill Workers
This lesson will have students use primary sources to learn about some of the mill workers and their jobs at the Lonsdale Company in RI. 
The Life of Captain Wilbur Kelly
This lesson will have students practice using primary and secondary sources in order to learn about the past. 
Looming and Learning
This lesson plan is intended to make students think critically about how clothing is manufactured today and why. 
Manufacturing with Marbles at Ashton
This lesson will have students examine several products manufactured by Owens-Corning at the Ashton Mill in Rhode Island from 1941 to 1983. 
Peace Picnics and Community in Hopedale
This speech-focused lesson highlights the importance of community events and networks of communication among abolitionists in Hopedale, MA. 
Project ZAP! Blackstone River Cleanup
This lesson will have students use historical thinking skills by analyzing two primary sources related to the Blackstone cleanup in 1972. 
The Rhode Island System of Mill Villages
This lesson gives students the opportunity to learn more about the community of Ashton and discover their own community's history. 
Samuel Slater: Hero or Traitor
Samuel Slater is regarded as a traitor in his hometown of Belper, England but a hero in the US. This lesson plan focuses on Slater's story. 
Slave Cloth and the Slater Fund
Learn about the connections between Slavery and the textile system and the steps of one industrialist to right historic wrongs 
Women and Children in the Mill Village
In this lesson, students will practice examining a set of images where women or children are the main subjects of the photographs. |
Last updated: February 19, 2025