Tom: About 25 years ago the children's Museum and Planetarium in Charleston,
WVA created 11 West Virginia Heritage Trunks(in vintage camelback trunks) to
travel to eighth grade classes throughout West Virginia. The trunks' contents
included games , toys, clothing, music (a dulcimer and how to play it),
a quilt-making project, hand puppets to create an historical event, art,
etc., all based on role playing of families who were living in WVA in the
latter part of the 19th century. A Teacher's Guide accompanied the trunk,
and the Museum provided teacher training on how to use the trunk...the
activities included a barn raising, elections, a spelling bee, soap making
(homemade soap was included), singing (an audio tape of language and lore
was included also), and other such activities.  About 20 years ago the
trunks were given to the State Museum for distribution...and more of them were
replicated to reach more students. I don't know the status of them currently,
but you might get in touch with the West Virginia Cultural Center in
Charlestonto find out. They were a huge success as eighth grade social
studies teachers at that time were required to teach WVA history and had few
resources....they were taken by the State Board of Educ. to all 55 counties in
the state, and remained in each classroom for 2 weeks. Good luck! Jane Glaser