As America celebrates its 250th anniversary this year, we will embark on a journey through land use in Hanna’s Town and the Pennsylvania frontier era. Starting by exploring the Native American presence throughout the region through trails, trade, and hunting parties, we’ll engage in hands-on learning experiences that follow the change in land ownership as colonial settlements pushed boundaries and altered our region’s landscape as we know it today.

Activities will focus on the outdoors and will cover a wide-range of topics that reveal how people lived on this land, such as trades, tools, crafts, navigation, use of natural resources, gardening, agriculture, and more. Kids will discover that life wasn’t always “all work and no play,” and find out what connects us to people who lived 250 years ago.

Some questions that we’ll explore include:

“How did people find their way and navigate through the wilderness?”

“How did people survive and make a living on the frontier?”

“What did people do to make the best use out of the land here”

“How did people utilize the resources around them?

“Why would people want to settle on this land?”

“What did this land mean to them?”

“What does this land mean to you?”

“This Land is your Land” will tackle the fascinating and intricate history of Hanna’s Town and encourage kids to think about how we can continue to work together today to make this land belong to you, your family, friends, and neighbors.