News Release

National Park Service Provides Grants to Advance Preservation Technology

The NCPTT grant to the NPS Southern Arizona Office will develop terrestrial laser scanning methods to replicate and quantify the loss of earthen architecture at Casa Grande.

NPS Photo

News Release Date: June 7, 2018

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WASHINGTON – The National Park Service (NPS) today announced $252,600 in grants for projects to develop or adapt techniques that preserve historical sites and cultural heritage.

"Advancements in science and technology have always played an essential role in historic preservation," said NPS Deputy Director P. Daniel Smith. "These grants encourage innovation and creativity for researching, sharing knowledge, and preserving historic places and cultural objects that tell the story of our past."

Examples of projects funded this year include:

• The University of Cincinnati will study the use of retrofitting insulation materials and methods in historic homes and buildings. They will determine what types of materials are used in different regions and how effective they are at reducing building energy use.
• The Kentucky Center for African American Heritage will take the latest technologies for preserving buildings and translate them into a series of videos for homeowners of shotgun houses – 12 feet wide houses popular in Southern United States from the end of the American Civil War through the 1920’s.
• The University of New Mexico will use virtual reality and augmented reality to document and better understand cultural landscapes.

The National Park Service’s National Center for Preservation Technology and Training (NCPTT) administers the grants as part of its efforts to create new technologies and training opportunities to preserve historic and cultural resources. Since 1994, NCPTT has awarded more than $10 million in grants to fund science and technology-based historic preservation projects.

A full list of this year’s grant recipients is below. For more information about the National Center for Preservation Technology and Training, including these grants, visit www.ncptt.nps.gov.
 

State	Project	Recipient	Amount
Arizona	Develop Terrestrial Laser Scanning Methods to Replicate and Quantify the Loss of Earthen Architecture Associated with Changing Precipitation Regimes.	The Southern Arizona Office of the National Park Service	$27,903
Arkansas	Investigating Depth Estimation to Archaeological Magnetic Source Bodies	University of Arkansas	$25,565
District of Columbia	Field Toolkit and Methodology for Evaluating Indoor Environmental Quality (IEQ)  Performance of Historic Buildings for Their Sustainable and Effective Reuse	The Catholic University of America	$40,000
Kentucky	Conservation and Preservation How-to Video Series	Kentucky Center for African American Heritage	$40,000
New Mexico	Cultural Landscapes Visualization Tool and Training Workshop	University of New Mexico	$39,984
Ohio	A Systematic Investigation of Interior Insulation Retrofits of Walls in U.S. Historic Buildings	University of Cincinnati	$40,000
Texas	DNA characterization of soil microbes associated with degradation of borate-treated wood in geographic regions with high levels of naturally occurring borates	Angelo State University	$39,174
Total			$252,626

 

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About the National Park Service. More than 20,000 National Park Service employees care for America's 417 national parks and work with communities across the nation to help preserve local history and create close-to-home recreational opportunities. Visit us at www.nps.gov, on Facebook www.facebook.com/nationalparkservice, Twitter www.twitter.com/natlparkservice, and YouTube www.youtube.com/nationalparkservice.