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Here are ten ideas about teaching social studies through museums and historic sites. Specific strategies to make the most of a prime resource are explained.
- Museums are a significant resource that supports the North Carolina Social Studies Standard Course of Study (NCSSSCS).
- Museums and historic sites inspire students.
- There are many types of museums.
- Museums offer students informal opportunities to learn and can help you to design rich experiences for your students.
- Museums and historic sites have good curriculum support materials.
- Virtual Trips to a museum or historic site are almost as good as real trips.
- A successful museum trip involves the three P’s: preparation, participation,
and postvisit reflection.
- You and your students can make a museum together.
- Museum educators and curators are both resources and role models.
- North Carolina has many excellent museums with unlimited learning opportunities.
1) Museums are a significant North Carolina teaching resource.
Every school child in the United States visits a museum at least once a year, on average. The material preserved and exhibited in museums provide information that words alone cannot convey. The artifacts and ideas that museums and historic sites collect, preserve, and present constitute powerful and memorable learning experiences for students.
2) Museums and historic sites inspire students.
Museums have the real thing. The virtual environment created by TV, computers, and even magazines and books removes students from original art, artifacts, and culture. Museums provide a setting for students to encounter someone else’s ideas, lifestyle, and creativity first hand.
Some museums require students to practice their skills of observation and summarization. Other museums encourage interaction and learning by doing. Students may sweep floors, cook in a fireplace, or gather eggs. Students must use their senses as well as their minds. Thus, visitors to museums interact with an authentic bit of the past, gain exposure to the unfamiliar, and realize the connection of individuals, past and present.
3) There are many types of museums.
There are many types of museums and historic sites. Museums include collections related to history, prehistory, art, and science. However, all include artifacts useful in teaching the North Carolina Social Studies Standard Course of Study.
- History museums include historic sites that preserve building and landscapes associated with a person, family, or event of local, state, or national significance. Local historical societies preserve the history of a specific area.
- Art museums feature paintings, sculpture, drawings, photographs, or other creative expressions. Many provide historic context in the labels explaining the background of the artist or the inspiration for the week.
- Science and natural history museums include planetariums, environmental centers, arboretums, aquariums, and zoo.
Museums in North Carolina help students:
- Imagine how North Carolina’s American Indians lives.
- Observe exotic animals from the four hemispheres of the globe.
- Participate in an experiment to understand gravity and its relation to
space travel.
- Imagine rural farm life throughout several North Carolina historical periods.
Imagine life of early Africans and African Americans.
- Discover the progression of technology in the state.
- Each museum has a mission that summarizes the information it collects
and interprets.
4) Museums offer students informed opportunities to learn and can help you to design rich experiences for your students.
Museum staff creates exhibits and programs to educate visitors and they offer special tours and activities to make museum learning experiences more meaningful. Museum educators continue to develop these programs in to correlate to the social studies standards.
Consult a museum educator before planning your visit. Ask them how the experience incorporates knowledge and skills from the North Carolina Social Studies Standard Course of Study. Get information on any offerings that relate directly to the NCSSSCS. Educators in museums are eager to work with teachers who want to make the most of their museums experience.
5) Museums and historic sites have good curriculum support materials.
6) Virtual Trips to a museum or historic site are almost as good as real trips.
The four walls of the classroom just expanded! The Internet now makes it possible to visit museums all over the world via the classroom computer.
- Take a tour of North Carolina, the United States, and various world regions,
http://www.ncwiseowl.org/CarolinaClips/vvisits/home.htm
- Take a virtual tour of the Louvre in Paris
http://www.louvre.fr/llv/musee/visite_virtuelle.jsp?bmLocale=en
- Explore Egyptian treasure in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City,
http://www.metmuseum.org
- Learn about the experiences of the earliest permanent English settlers in North America at Jamestown, Virginia, http://www.apva.org and at Plymouth, Massachusetts, http://www.plimoth.org
- This trip includes a discussion of issues related to using the Internet in social studies classroom projects, as well as a listing of some related resources and activities teachers may use in their classroom regarding U.S. presidents, http://www.tramline.com/ss/prez/
- This field trip is an exploration about “things American” and touches a little on history, whimsy, symbolism, and some of what it means to be American, http://www.tramline.com/ss/america/
- This field trip takes you to background information sites for individual or class work as well as providing an online project for you to join, http://www.tramline.com/ss/otrail/
- This trip provides teachers and students with the framework to study other countries and cultures (Windows on the World) from a personal perspective while incorporating a variety of subject areas such as reading, writing, math, and social studies (including geography, history and economics), http://www.tramline.com/cross/world/
- This trip visits sites with links to individual biographies, primary sources and more about women’s history, http://www.tramline.com/ss/womhist/
- The study of flight crosses the disciplines and tickles the imagination of young and old alike. Visited sites in this adventure point out the scientific principles that make flight possible, as well as the fascinating history of its evolution. The people who made each step come to life are highlighted as well. Several of the sites are interactive and therefore invite students to be active participants in the learning experience, http://www.tramline.com/cross/flight/
In addition, the Internet offers the unique opportunity for students to take part in museum educational offerings without leaving the classroom. Many museums are developing online educational resources.
- Mystic Seaport Museum, http://www.mysticseaport.org/ is creating a site where students can learn more about the experience of Africans about the slave ship Amistad, their rebellion, and subsequent Supreme Court decision on their future as humans or property.
- Visit the virtual exhibits and the digital classroom offered by the National Archives and Records Administration in Washington, D.C, http://www.nara.gov/
- Primary source documents to learn about colonial North Carolina at the Colonial N.C. Museum http://docsouth.unc.edu/classroom/lessonplans/csr
7) A successful museum trip involves the Three P’s: preparation, participation, and post-visit reflection.
Preparation
Museums can be overwhelming. Students who receive information on the experience before the visit, who know where they are going, and know what they will see and do, tend to gain more from the experience. The best school visits result from preparation. Here are some ways to prepare your students.
- Most museums have pre-visit packets of information that include brochures with pictures of the site, information about the museum and its collections, and activities to complete as a before a visit.
- Visit the museum web site if they have one and discuss the route, the location, and the rules of behavior. Let the students help map and plan the trip.
- Museums cannot exist without artifacts. They must preserve them and make them available to the general visitor. Explain this to the students so they understand that the things they will see provide a direct link to another time and to the activities and ideas of other people. This makes it easier for students to understand the things museum staff may ask them to do during the visit.
- Teachers should know what they want to accomplish beforehand and they should select the program most appropriate for their class, whether presented in the form of a site visit, virtual exhibit on the Internet, or a curriculum product. See and do less and leave students asking for more. Encourage family trips if students want to see more.
Participation
What will students learn in a museum? To really learn, students MUST be actively engaged in some kind of directed learning experience. Think of this as fieldwork, not as a fieldtrip. Students should have the opportunity to use a variety of social studies skills, from critical thinking and observation to sketching and distinguishing between primary and secondary resources.
Here are some suggested student activities:
- Students can write stories of the individuals and lifestyles they learned about.
- Students can draw maps and compute the miles traveled to the museum.
- They can consider the economic characteristics of the museum, its sources
of funding and support, and the role of government in the future of
the museum.
- Students can consider issues of citizenship and the role museums play in preserving the customs, symbols, and celebrations of the past.
- Students can gain a greater understanding of their role in the perpetuation
of museums in North Carolina. They can serve as responsible citizens and effective leaders by encouraging support for museum funding, or volunteering their time to the institutions.
Here is a generic participation strategy:
Observing artifacts in a collection helps students understand the differences between primary and secondary sources. Students “read” the objects, photographs, or documents they encounter by progressing through the following steps:
- Analyzing information (What is the artifact made of? What is the condition of the artifact? Was it used and does it show wear?)
- Organizing and interpreting it (What does the object do? What other things serve the same purpose?)
- Identifying frame of reference and point of view (Who used the object? Did different people use it different ways and for different purposes?)
- Identifying bias in the material (Are all the people who used the artifact reflected in the historical record?)
Teachers should encourage students to ask the museum staff about the different points of view of the artists, farmers, children, or soldiers who either created the artifacts in the museum or lived on the historic site. This interaction with the museum staff makes the experience even more memorable.
Upon arrival in the new environment at the museum or historic site, students should be assigned a task or responsibility. It is often difficult to carry a pencil and paper, and some museums may not allow this. The best strategy to ensure retention is to ask students to sit for a quiet moment during the visit and have them reflect on their surroundings and the experience. Have students write down their personal memories first, and then ask for volunteers to share their experiences. This activity also provides and opportunity to emphasize frame of reference because not everyone participated in every activity in the same way and each will remember different experiences. Ask the students to write a brief summary of their most memorable experience to share with the class the next day.
Teachers should participate in the program along with their class. Then they can facilitate discussion, remind students of the concepts learned, and bring the lesson to closure back in the classroom.
Post-visit reflection
Evaluating the experience, that is, what students gained from the experience is crucial. Continue the reflection begun on site when the class reconvenes at school. Have the students communicate their points of view in written, oral, or visual forms. After students share their experiences, ask them to organize them into a meaningful pattern and explain their rational for the decisions.
8) You and your students can make a museum together.
Most students collect, preserve, and interpret something, whether it’s baseball cards, stamps, dolls, or guppies. Help them understand the similarities between wheat they do and what the museum does. Think about what it takes to make an exhibit. Have the students design an exhibit on a topic of their choice, install it, and invite their parents to visit during a scheduled open-house.
Middle and secondary students can get experience in producing thematic exhibits if they choose to participate in National History Day, http://www.thehistorynet.com/NationalHistoryDay/, a program which encourages research and communication in a range of formats including exhibits, historical papers, media, and performance. The North Carolina historical Association serves as the liaison between this national program and schools throughout North Carolina. The North Carolina Historical Association administers regional and then a state-wide competition. Winners move on to the nation competition in Maryland.
9) Museum educators and curators are both resources and role models.
Students can learn more about collecting and researching by talking with the people who do it for a living, the curators and educators who work in museums. Research museum related professions. Invite museum representatives to the classroom as guest speakers. Ask them questions about the jobs they do, about the role of volunteers in museums, and how helping museums helps the community.
10) North Carolina has many excellent museums with unlimited xlearning opportunities - (http://www.ncwiseowl.org/CarolinaClips/vvisits/history.html)
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Contact- N.C. Museum of History
Phone# (919) 807-7850
Charlotte Sullivan- (919) 8077995
Charlotte.sullivan@ncmail.net
http://ncmuseumofhistory.org/trg.pdf
http://ncmuseumofhistory.org/edu/ProfDev.html
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