Warning: do not read unless you want to become instantly obsessed. We're history and travel buffs in my family. We homeschooled our four kids starting in 1995. Since I'm a hands-on kind of teacher, a get out and do gal, I taught my kids on the "I hear, I forget, I see I remember, I do, I learn" mantra. Every outing is an adventure and every adventure a lesson. Recently on Youtube we urban spelunking. That's where intrepid (slightly crazy) people explore defunct (or not) urban structures like regular spelunkers explore caves. Sometimes the places are abandoned, like the rocket storage facility in the Florida everglades. The documentary "Into the Darkness" touched on the discovery of a ginormous rocket left in a mine shaft in the 1960s. The image on the left is an old, abandoned (queue spine-tingles) amusement park. While it might not be safe to explore broken down buildings, you can research the history. You can visit places with an eye to the background. Teach kids to watch for details of old architecture, sealed off rooms, basement structures, etc.
