Texas Social Studies Framework - Department of Geography ...

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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