What will students see and experience in the museum?
The hour-long museum education program for this exhibition is designed to give students direct access to primary sources in an interesting and engaging way. Students are able to analyze multiple accounts of the same event, noting similarities and differences in the point of view they represent (a key tenet of the Common Core State Standards). Photographs and artifacts featured in the exhibition are used to give context to the first-person accounts of California’s pioneer women.
The exhibition includes:
- the original handwritten book containing almost 800 accounts of those who joined The Association of Pioneer Women of California, as well as the organization’s founding documents
- the reminiscences of individual women in print and in digital audio, selected and annotated by our staff
- objects from our collection that illuminate themes found in their writing
- early maps of California, as well as other contemporaneous publications
- rare photographs and panoramas that provide context for the experiences described by the women
- images of women about whom little is recorded or known, coupled with questions that explore how bias and omission skew historic records
The museum education program includes:
- a private, guided tour of the exhibition
- an introduction to key concepts and vocabulary
- activities that illuminate the diverse experiences of those who came before us
- an opportunity to do research using primary sources and first-person testimony
- projects that encourage students to see their own story, as well as those of their parents and grandparents, as an important part of California history
Are there materials or activities I can introduce in the classroom before or after our visit to the exhibition?
Our museum education program is designed to support your history and social studies curriculum. This guide includes materials, as well as suggestions for ways to use them in your classroom, to complement the experience students have during their time in the museum.
– Make a Tour Reservation –
To make a tour reservation for your class, please contact:
John Hogan
(415) 957-1849 ext. 120
[email protected]