"Slavery is the ground zero of race relations," declared James and Lois Horton in their groundbreaking book, "Slavery and Public History." Engaging the history and legacy of slavery is a crucial step in understanding current U.S. society especially race relations. Historic sites that have connections to slavery have begun to…

Museum exhibits can be a tool in experiential learning. While instructors have documented various methods of experiential learning, they have not sufficiently explored such learning from museum exhibits. Museum researchers, however, have long found a satisfying cognitive component to museum visits. This paper narrates the author's design to…

As Howard Gardner persuasively argued, movement, or kinesthetics, can be a powerful educational tool and one to which some learners are particularly attuned. Museums, however, are typically places that discourage movement (don't run, don't jump, watch out for the artifacts). This makes incorporating kinesthetic learning challenging. This article…

According to Richard Louv, author of "Last Child in the Woods," "disconnection from nature...has enormous implications for human health and child development...Children need nature for the healthy development of their senses, and therefore, for learning and creativity" (2005). How can science teachers help their students learn…

An emphasis on visual rhetoric can be incorporated into a variety of classrooms. This article illustrates teaching visual rhetoric to first-year composition students via interpretation and analysis through a trip to a local art museum for the first essay assignment and through an exploration of photography for the second essay assignment. In the…

"Teaching History with Museums" provides an introduction and overview of the rich pedagogical power of museums. In this comprehensive textbook, the authors show how museums offer a sophisticated understanding of the past and develop habits of mind in ways that are not easily duplicated in the classroom. Using engaging cases to illustrate…

The National September 11 Memorial & Museum will be officially dedicated this September on the 10th anniversary of the attacks of 2001. It provides educational resources that explore the ongoing impact of the September 11th attacks and the ways that volunteerism and art aid in healing, recovery, and rebuilding. The 9/11 Memorial Museum, to be…

Few regions in the U.S. boast a more plentiful array of historically significant sites than the 175-mile-long route between Monticello, Virginia, and Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. From the most venerated of Civil War battlefields to nine historic homes of U.S. presidents and thousands of sites listed in the National Register of Historic Places, the…

Donors give art collections worth millions of dollars to colleges, mostly to be displayed in their art museums. But some financially strapped colleges have started looking at the art as a way of escaping their financial woes. Fisk University expects to make $16-million from the sale of two paintings, one by Georgia O'Keeffe and another by Marsden…

If the mission of the social studies is to educate global citizens for the twenty-first century, then students must learn how to engage in the type of systematic and sophisticated literacy work that recognizes the power of images as well as texts. In an era of high stakes testing, it is not easy for teachers to find time to locate appropriate art,…

Friedman profiles Margy Natalie, 47, who has been a certified pilot for as long as she's been teaching. She owns her own airplane--a blue 1950 Ryan Navion B, has attended space camp and lists four airports as her favorite places in the world. She is one of the two public school teachers on full-time loan at the Smithsonian National Air and Space…

Fifth graders at a Virginia school are applying new knowledge about world cultures by constructing artifacts for an Egyptian legacy exhibit. Exhibitions are a key facet of Museums-in-Progress (MIP), a program that links problem-solving activities with the real world. Students learn to develop, install, and interpret an exhibition by touring local…

The William King Regional Arts Center (Abingdon, Virginia) shares Appalachian and world cultures with thousands of visitors each year, runs a comprehensive school program staffed by certified instructors and studio artists, and takes art to 93 rural elementary schools in surrounding counties. In 18 months of field work, the center documented the…

Maintains that, although museums are visited by children and adults for their unique learning experiences, few people understand how museums and their exhibits are created. Discusses the Museum-in-Progress program. Describes four examples of elementary class projects in two states and includes a list of teacher resources. (CFR)

Since any good citizen wants to know how his Government works, as an initial experience it is necessary to become acquainted with the setting--Washington, D. C. This bulletin serves as an introduction to the Capital. It provides an historical and a present-day background for appreciating the city. What kind of a community is Washington? Why does…