Interstate highways from the ground up

By Kristin Post

Provided by UNC Libraries / Documenting the American South

This lesson gives students a first-hand opportunity to hear about the planning and effort it takes to build a highway through an oral history of a North Carolina Department of Transportation (NCDOT) resident engineer. Through his oral history, students will learn about “the largest single construction project in the history of the NCDOT.” That project is also known as the I-26 corridor in Madison County, North Carolina. This lesson encourages students to think about the enormous impact of highways in our personal lives, and on North Carolina’s economy, while recognizing how we take highways for granted.

This lesson includes teacher’s guides as well as the oral history audio excerpts and transcripts.

• See the table of contents or begin reading: For teachers