ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on two specific forts as cases highlighting some of the student learning experiences forts and related historic sites can provide. The Fort at No. 4, along the Connecticut River at Charlestown, New Hampshire, is a modern reconstruction of a garrison compound that originally stood a short distance south of the present-day site. Fort Ticonderoga, located at the portage between Lake Champlain and Lake George in upstate New York, was built by the French as Fort Carillon between 1754 and 1757. Regardless of their location, or the reasons for their existence, historic forts share a number of inherently useful attributes that make them excellent teaching places. Forts can help students to understand the role of geography in history, to explore power and authority, to see history through multiple perspectives, to explore the differences between history and heritage, to engage with archaeological evidence, and to examine the role of women in history.
