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Youth Education
Over 100 things to do in a cemetery
We walk by historic sites everyday, but few of us stop and truly look
and learn from these places. How can anyone appreciate something they
know little about? Tours of old homes and festivals in historic business
districts are appealing to many people. These special events allow the
public to experience how people of the past worked, played and
celebrated.
Historic cemeteries attract fewer visitors because of perceptions
of being scary and dangerous places. Often the setting for horror
movies and tales of community ghosts still roaming the grounds, people
hold narrow views as to uses for these historic landscapes. To overcome
modern fears, people of all ages need to have educational and
interesting experiences to learn why historic cemeteries are important
to understanding our past. If the stories are left untold and people are
not encouraged to visit, our historic cemeteries will be seen by the
public as land better developed for the living.
One thought should be at the forefront in planning educational
experiences for a cemetery. Cemeteries are landscapes that hold the
remains of those that have gone before; a place that allows the living
to remember when they once walked the earth. You should never hold an
event or create a product or presentation that ignores the dignity of
this site. This will be accomplished by offering well-planned
educational experiences and materials that take into account the
irreplaceable landscape and relative's feelings.
TOURS
- Living history tour such as "Tales of the Crypt," where individuals
select, research, write and present vignettes about the life of an
individual buried on the grounds. The AHPP has created a how-to manual
on producing your own living history event. The manual covers planning,
supplies, tour ideas, creating scripts for guides and actors, funding,
publicity and evaluation, and offers various ideas on how to use this
tour to enhance appreciation of cemeteries.
- Costumed tours, on a regular, requested or special basis.
- School group field trips: To assist in planning experiences for children, request a copy of our curriculum, "Grave Knowledge."
- Scavenger Hunt: There are numerous ways that this activity can be
used as a self-guided tour or part of an educational activity for school
groups. Print clues in the paper and invite the public to visit on
their own to roam and find the answers. Create a list of items that
will be seen along your tour path, and ask students to find them as you
provide other bits of information or allow them time to view on their
own or work as teams. Have a scavenger hunt where all answers are found
in the cemetery and another hunt that will require both the cemetery
and visits to local libraries to locate answers.
- Tour of Angels, obelisks and other monumental sculptures found on
the site. The AHPP has some information on large-scale figurative
pieces located in the state.
- History of Cemetery
- View restoration efforts
- Bus tour of many area cemeteries during the day with a picnic on the grounds.
- Bus/trolley tour of a few area cemeteries at night with dinner at a
historic house or in a building on the grounds of the cemetery. Charge
a fee to cover the bus and dinner, and add a bit for your fund.
- For large cemeteries, offer a section tour series
- Flower tour of daffodil, irises, azaleas, etc.
- Tree and shrub tour
- Bird watching tour
- Owl prowl tour or other nocturnal animal tours
- Urban wildlife tour or rural animals tour
- Star gazing tour
- Horticultural club-sponsored tour: Meet in the morning once every
month or every other month and see what is in bloom before you go to
work.
- Hiking tour: Provide a map of city or regional sites for a
self-guided tour. The map can highlight cemeteries or include other
historic properties found along the path.
- Flashlight walking tours
- Epitaph tour
- Symbolism on stones tour
- Look at the different ethnic traditions found in the burial ground
- Look at different shapes of the markers and monuments
- An everything but the gravestones tour: Look at other features
associated with graves such as footstones, fountains, cradles, cast iron
fencing, decorations, etc. More than one tour could be developed using
this idea.
- Tours led by experts, such as geologists to discuss stones,
historians to discuss history, biologists to describe plant life, or
pastors to examine epitaphs; these are only a few of the people that
could broaden public understanding of the cemetery and possibly connect
to potential audience members.
- Women of the community tour
- Outstanding leaders, community rascals, particular professions (business, health, homemakers, etc.)
- Tour of children's markers
- Spotlight tour, changing monthly or weekly, that focuses on four or
more individuals that led colorful, inspirational, or lives that should
not be emulated
- Offer regular tours and focus on people that were born or died during the month of the presentation.
- Tour buildings found on the property or associated with the property such as Chapels, mausoleums or columbaria.
- Ghost tour
- Examples of the work of a carver or monument company found in the cemetery
- Advertise as a good place to take a walk
- Changes in language tour
- Stained glass tour
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Special Events
- Seminar for learning to identify and grow roses, irises and succulents
- Watercolor, drawing, or sculpture workshop
- Photography workshop
- How to conduct a survey workshop
- Grave rededication ceremony
- Monument inscription workshop: how to read and decipher
- Jazz concert
- String quartet serenade during a summer stroll
- Arbor Day celebration
- 5K walk/run that begins or ends at the cemetery
- Bike marathon such as Boston's Tour de Graves, a 25-mile bike tour of the city whose route travels by many city cemeteries
- Demonstrate proper cleaning techniques for markers, how archaeologist locate unmarked burials, how masons cut stone
- Hold a workshop on how to conduct research using the marker as a
starting point, flower arranging, or some other skill that is related to
the cemetery
- Hold an invitational contest: One cemetery invited sculptors from
across the county to submit designs for monumental sculpture; pieces
were selected, created and placed in the cemetery for a public exhibit
- Sponsor a public contest, such as best photograph or painting of
the site, best essay or best creative writing. Place winning entries in
a calendar, book or other medium
- Hold a conference where individuals learn about preservation, history, flowers, etc.
- Hold a workshop on proper cemetery maintenance procedures
- Sponsor a seminar, such as one on historic plants led by a
horticulturist or improvements in medical practices since 1900 led by a
medical historian
- Have a booth or provide a tour as part of a community celebration
- Have an anniversary celebration
- Have a Memorial Day service, working with a veteran's group
- Hold a contest and serve dinner on the grounds or in a cemetery structure as a prize
- Hold an auction: You could sell products developed for the site as
well as vintage clothing or other items from times periods represented
in the cemetery
- Have a tour and picnic as an auction item
- Hold a Visitation Day where all cemeteries within a given area are open to the public
- Hold a signing for something written about your site or about cemeteries in general
- Have a flower show where you invite local florists to decorate a
grave, include a photograph and biography of the deceased,and invite the
public to stroll
- Hold lunch time, evening or Sunday lectures on site that describe
mourning costumes, burial practices, death omens or environmental
effects on the site
- Sponsor a family or community decoration day or clean up day
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PROJECTS
- Serve as a local site for a service vacation for folks from abroad.
You may work with an elderhostel program for the elderly or contact
churches for youth mission workers.
- Erect a monument
- Develop a volunteer program
- Have Eagle Scouts work on badge requirements
- Collect oral histories connected to your site: Record memories of family members during reunions, interview the caretaker, etc.
- Organize a speaker's bureau that can present on-site tours,
off-site slide shows to community groups and potential donors, or work
with teachers on and off site when using the cemetery as an outdoor
classroom
- Set up a library in an existing structure on-site or at the local
library, or have all cemeteries of a particular religion or region send
materials on cemeteries to a designated facility
- Develop a school partnership for educational programs
- Design and erect an exhibit
- Notify the state film department of your site and offer as a possible backdrop for a movie
- If you have buildings such as chapels, mausoleums, etc. offer to groups for meeting, weddings and other events.
- Adopt-a-plot program
- Develop an arboretum by labeling old trees and placing new species around the perimeter or in the newer section of the site
- Try to seek designation as an open air museum
- Sponsor an archaeological dig to take place at another site. For a
list of archaeological trips contact the Arkansas Archeological Survey,
2475 Hatch Ave., Fayetteville, AR 72704 or call (501) 575-3556
- Have an awards ceremony and honor a cemetery
- Seek out students that must complete a community service project, and have a list of activities that they may perform
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MATERIALS
- Erect a sign on the property
- Erect a historical plaque on site
- Create slide shows to help illustrate lectures
- Write a newsletter to be used for members and as a promotional tool
- Design a website
- Create an audio tape for use on self guide driving or walking tours
- Make a video of concerns and solutions, the history of the cemetery, activities of "friends group," community partnerships, etc.
- Create a calendar
- Make a map of interesting site features or people, city cemeteries, regional burial grounds, or sites found along a scenic byway
- Design a brochure for your cemetery
- Design a pamphlet for area cemeteries
- Write an educational lesson plan for your cemetery
- Design educational units for your cemetery
- Write a letter to local educators about how to use your site,
including information for college professors, as well as primary and
secondary school teachers
- Write a book: A burial index for genealogists, a sculpture overview
for artists, a historical overview for history buffs, scary tales
connected to area cemeteries for general reading, a fictional book that
uses the cemetery as a setting for parts of the story, or print oral
histories connected to your site. Midnight in the Garden of Good and
Evil generated visitation to Savannah's historic cemetery
- Write an editorial
- Make a coloring book
- Design a manual for tour guides
- Write a National Register of Historic Places Nomination
- Fill in and frame family tree charts for different plots on your
grounds. Hang these in you library, use as part of an exhibit, or for
examples during genealogical workshops
- Create a scrapbook of "friends" activities
- Make a quilt
- Create a recipe book with traditional family dishes
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PRODUCTS
- Posters of one monument, many monuments, people with the monuments that mark their final resting place, etc.
- Postcards with the cemetery logo or illustrations or photographs taken on site as part of a workshop, contest or other project
- Memo pads
- T-shirts
- Jewelry: You could recreate mourning jewelry from the Victorian
era or design pieces based on outstanding markers found in the burial
grounds
- Note cards
- Tote bags
- Baseball caps
- Calendars
- Flowers/ bouquets for special events
- Limited sales of clippings and seeds from historic plants
- Miniature replicas of interesting markers could be used as wall
hangings, book ends or Christmas ornaments; make a limited quantity to
qualify as collectibles
- Print series: Invite an artist to create one or more paintings that use the cemetery as a subject
- Puzzle
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FOR MORE IDEAS:
- Mount Auburn in Cambridge, Massachusetts offers programming on a
regular basis. Call the cemetery at (617) 547-7105 and request a
calendar of events.
- Tomb with a View newsletter lists cemetery events from several
different regions. For more information on how to order this newsletter
write: Tomb With a View, P.O. Box 24810, Lyndhurst, OH 44124-0810.
- Association for Gravestones Studies, 278 Main Street, Suite 207, Greenfield, MA, 01301
- Or call the Arkansas Historic Preservation Program at (501) 324-9880
Remember that these ideas can be mixed, matched or altered to fit your cemetery and meet your goals.
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