Maintains that art museums have developed new strategies and resources to provide services to art teachers, other educators, and students. Presents four classroom lessons utilizing paintings and other exhibits from the Art Institute of Chicago (Illinois). (CFR)

Presents an interview with historian Cary Carson of the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation and author William Styron on the role of history in society. Outlines the once-proposed Disney history theme park near Mannassas, Virginia. Discusses historical interpretation, museums, historical sites, and popular history. (CFR)

New Mexico's Institute of American Indian and Alaska Native Culture and Arts Development has survived major loss of federal funding and subsequent retrenchment, watched enrollment rise, and begun construction of a new campus. The institute is dedicated to study, creative application, preservation, and care of Indian arts and culture, and houses…

Describes the Museum Research Apprenticeship Program (MRAP) for high school students at the Natural History Museum in Los Angeles. Participating students learn scientific research methods and have a unique opportunity to work with scientists in the museum and in the field. Offers tips to teachers for designing apprenticeship programs locally with…

This article draws on a wider body of research that explores whether art and design teachers (art teachers) and museum and gallery educators (gallery educators) hold conflicting conceptions of "critical and contextual studies". The data analysis focuses on what interviewees said about each other in relation to crossing boundaries between…

Archaeology is a highly interdisciplinary field. Its main goal is to construct culture histories, but it uses many scientific methods in the process. Ethical dilemmas inherent in archaeology make it a good vehicle for teaching ethics and character in the classroom (Moe 2000). The interdisciplinary nature of the field makes it possible to weave…

Institutions like Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) provide New England with cultural wealth in a variety of ways, including the great art and design housed in their museums and their vibrant faculty and student body, which numbers in RISD's case, 1,900 undergraduates and 375 graduate students from the United States and almost 50 countries.…

Children can learn a lot about social studies by "reconstructing a culture" in the classroom. To reconstruct a culture, students can make use of prior knowledge to build a hierarchy of concepts about culture as well as learn social science subject knowledge appropriate to their grade level. In addition, they can have the tactile…

In many developed countries of the world, pupil attitudes to school science decline progressively across the age range of secondary schooling while fewer students are choosing to study science at higher levels and as a career. Responses to these developments have included proposals to reform the curriculum, pedagogy, and the nature of pupil…

Based on 1982 and 1992 surveys sponsored by the National Endowment for the Arts, this report examines participation in seven core art forms by baby boomers, individuals born between 1946 and 1965. Art forms investigated were: classical music concerts; jazz concerts; operas; musicals; ballet performances; theatre; and museums. Findings indicate…

This study attempts to gain information concerning the receptive, as opposed to the creative, aesthetic experience by talking to museum professionals who spend their working lives identifying, appraising, and explicating works of art. The study is based on an underlying assumption that rules and practices for looking at art exist and must be…

This curriculum resource includes a set of 20 color slides with a descriptive script and comprehensive lesson guide. The unit, which is adaptable for use with grades K-12, examines some of the Northwest Coast Native art objects in the Seattle Art Museum's permanent collection and teaches about the art and culture of the indigenous people of the…

This paper describes a year-long project in a fifth grade classroom to investigate the recurring flooding of the Pecatonica River (Illinois) and its effects on plant and animal life. The project was funded by a grant from the Illinois State Board of Education (ISBE) to involve elementary school classrooms with a consortium of museums in the…

The focus of this teacher's packet is the bronze vessels made for the kings and great families of the early Chinese dynasties between 1700 B.C. and 200 A.D. The materials in the guide are intended for use by teachers and students visiting the exhibition, "The Arts of China," at the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery of the Smithsonian Institution…

This issue of "Art to Zoo" focuses on Japanese art and is adapted from materials developed by the education department of the Smithsonian Institution's Freer Gallery of Art and the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery. After learning how to look at paintings, students make paper screens that resemble Japanese screens. Background essays about Japan…