Texas Social Studies Framework - Department of Geography ...

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Chapter 8: Implementing the TEKS: Other Players ing the visit with a meaningful exercise helps students realize the value of the out-of-classroom experience. 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 settings encourage interaction and learning by doing using replicas. Students can sweep floors, cook in a fireplace, or gather eggs. Students 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 and historic sites. Museums include collections related to history, prehistory, natural history, art, and science. • History museums include historic sites that preserve buildings 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 work. • Science and natural history museums include planetariums, environmental centers, arboretums, aquariums, and zoos. • Museums and historic sites include artifacts useful in teaching the state curriculum for social studies. Museums in Texas help students imagine how Caddoan Indians lived, observe exotic animals from the four hemispheres of the globe, participate in an experiment to understand gravity and its relation to space travel, and imagine the rough and tumble life of a cowboy as portrayed in Frederick Remington sculptures. Each museum has a mission that summarizes the information it collects and interprets. Students can learn about early Texas residents when they visit Brazoria County 87 87 Historical Museum () or about the incidents surrounding the assassination of John F. Kennedy in November 1963 at the Sixth Floor Museum () 4) Museums offer students informal opportunities to learn and can help teachers design rich experiences for students. Museum staff create exhibits and programs to educate the visitors and they offer special tours and activities to make the experience more meaningful. Museum educators develop these programs in conformity with the state curriculum. Consult the museum educator before planning your visit. Ask them how the experience incorporates knowledge and skills from the state social studies curriculum. Get information on any offerings that relate directly to the relevant curriculum. Educators in museums are eager to work with teachers who want to make the most of their museum experience. 5) Museums and historic sites have good curriculum support materials. If arranging a trip to a museum poses too great a financial or logistical challenge, museum educators produce a range of informal outreach programs that meet curriculum needs. Discovery boxes, curriculum guides, outreach programs and suggested activities pre- and post-visit help teachers incorporate the resources of museums into the classroom. The Texas State Preservation Board () produced “Capitol Connections: History and Government at the Texas Capitol Complex.” This resource includes lesson plans, activities, and primary sources on the historic buildings and collections of the Capitol Complex. Almost all museums stock their sales areas with materials that extend the educational experience. Browse these shops to find the latest in related children’s books and toys. The Texas State Preservation Board developed a CD-ROM for those who want to remember the experience or for those unable to make the visit. The CD-ROM provides “A Virtual Tour of the Texas State Capitol” including the historic Capitol, the underground Capitol Extension, and the Capitol grounds. 6) Virtual trips to museums and historic sites are almost as good as real trips.
88 88 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 virtual tour of the Louvre in Paris (). • Explore Egyptian treasures in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City (). • Learn about the experiences of the earliest permanent English settlers in North America at Jamestown, Virginia () and Plymouth, Massachusetts (). 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. • The Institute of Texan Cultures has interactive programs featuring the Alamo and Tejano ranching (). • Mystic Seaport Museum maintains a virtual site where students can learn more about the experiences of Africans aboard 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. (). 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, 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. • 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 class before a visit. • Visit the museum website if they have one and discuss the route, the location, and the rules of Chapter 8: Implementing the TEKS: Other Players 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 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 about which they learned. • 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 Texas. 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
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Texas Social Studies Framework Kind
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The Social Studies Center for Educa
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iv iv Table of Contents What Are So
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Preface Although all of public educ
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