The old-time school bell in the 1902 building was rung by associate professor Rosalind Beiler, director of the UCF center, and Walt Griffin, Seminole County’s school superintendent, to symbolize the beginning of the new school year and the collaboration of the two organizations.

To reinforce the Public History Center’s goal of involving the community, Beiler quoted Benjamin Franklin: “Tell me and I forget, teach me and I may remember, involve me and I learn.” The center provides hands-on educational experiences for students of all ages, serves as a research site connecting local history to global events, and promotes opportunities for learning through workshops and interactive programming.

The center was just awarded a grant to show four documentaries and hold discussion forums about civil rights in America. The first film, “Freedom Riders,” won an Emmy in 2012 and will be shown 1 p.m. Nov. 2.

Dates will be set later for “The Abolitionists,” “Slavery by Another Name” and “The Loving Story.” “The Loving Story” and “The Abolitionists” have been nominated for Emmys this year.

The films are part of Created Equal: America’s Civil Rights Struggle, a partnership initiative of the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History.

Representatives from the university, Seminole County Public Schools, Sanford, various history groups and the community were on hand as the tower bell was clanged by Rosalind Beiler, UCF’s director of Public History, and Walt Griffin, Seminole school superintendent, to ring in the new school year.

Sanford “is providing the perfect place for students to learn public history,” said Beiler as she welcomed about 125 people to the school building that still has a picture of President Teddy Roosevelt in the center’s original 1902 classroom. The center soon will offer community workshops, promote involvement in historic preservation and expand programs for K-12 students.

Tina Calderone, chairwoman of the Seminole County School Board, added that the new collaboration will help students “walk the walk of history” by experiencing new exhibits and programs at the center.    

The center began as Sanford’s first high school, and later became a grammar school in 1911. In 1984 it was listed on the National Register of Historic Places and became the school district’s Student Museum and Center for the Social Studies, an interpretive center and a hands-on teaching museum.

UCF signed a lease on the building in the heart of Sanford’s residential historic district, and hopes the facility becomes a model for other Central Florida public history centers.

The center has several themed rooms in addition to the classroom. There’s also a pioneer room with a log cabin and tools; Grandma’s Attic with vintage household items and clothes; a Timucua room that represents a 1,200-year-old village; Georgetown and Crooms High School exhibits that feature the city’s African-American community, and other displays.

Behind the museum is a demonstration garden that contains Florida native plants, vegetables and flowers grown at the turn of the last century, antique roses, field crops and other horticultural displays.