The Value of a Museum

Museums offer more than interesting exhibits—they are key to keeping history alive. An immersive activity uses a virtual field trip to show academics the importance of museums in preserving history. Young historians learn how museums are...

Young historians explore ways to help preserve historic battlefields and artifacts. Designed for secondary scholars, the resource focuses on Civil War battlefields and the National Registrar of Historic Places Application. Pupils also...

Explore ethnicity and identity with a research and writing assignment. Class members conduct online research, looking in particular at images and carefully noting down their sources on notecards. They read about identity and compose...

How reliable is oral history? The resource uses the oral history website to help academics understand the pros and cons of using recollections to teach others. Scholars complete a worksheet, draft a letter to a representative, and...

How did the tradition of collecting and displaying interesting items to the public begin? How have museums evolved over time? Offer your young historians a fascinating look into a cultural pastime we so often take for granted...

The ratification process for the Fourteenth Amendment that granted citizenship to everyone male born in the United States was contentious. The video reenacts a portion of the 39th Congressional debates focusing on the ratification of the...

Skeletons may not be able to speak, but they can still tell us a lot. High schoolers watch a short video about the ways biological anthropologists can use a skeleton's bone structure to determine age, gender, place of birth, and social...

Just exactly what is social dancing? What does social dancing have to do with the African American community and African American history? The narrator of this short video explains how social dancing can support the culture of a...

Consider how America's founding fathers and their experiences contributed to the rights we all enjoy today. A collection of reading, writing, and collaborative exercises prompt high schoolers to think about the ways their current lives...

Did you know that tattoos date back to 8,000 years ago? From Otzi, mummified iceman of the Alps, to high society members of Victorian Britan, discover the cultural significance of tattoos amongst a wide variety...