In a Detroit Suburb, an Automaker's Vision Gets New Life

By Karen Abercrombie

Dearborn, Mich.

Many teachers often struggle to breathe life into a subject to hold their students' interest. At an unusual charter school here, teachers can make history, math, science, and English lessons come alive simply by walking outside the classroom.

The school is housed inside one of the richest environments for learning in the country--Henry Ford Museum & Greenfield Village, the massive monument to American culture, history, and technology created in the 1920s by auto pioneer Henry Ford.

A few yards from where Malcolm Carter teaches history sits a glass case containing the tattered rocking chair in which President Lincoln was sitting when he was fatally shot on the night...