Are
you looking for unique materials and sources to bring to your classroom? Do you
want your students to use artifacts to explore history? We are
always on the lookout a great museum to connect to our classrooms. Mystic
Seaport, The Museum of America and the Sea is a museum where you can make a
great classroom connection.
Why
would an Educator want to visit Mystic Seaport?
Located in Mystic,
Connecticut, Mystic Seaport tells the story of America and the Sea. The history
of life in the United States is the tale of the relationship between man and
the water. “If you or your ancestors traveled here anytime between the melting
of the ice bridge and about 1960, you came by water,” John Boudreau, a member
of the Museum’s Education Department said. “Put simply, the story of America is the story of America and the Sea.
They’re inseparable.”
Mystic Seaport uses a variety of experiences
and programs to share its collection of more than a million artifacts with the
public. In Mystic, the history of
America and the sea is an adventure.
Mystic Seaport has combined preservation, and unique experiences to
share their collection with you.
How
can you connect with Mystic Seaport?
Mystic
Seaports uses both traditional program and virtual programing to connect with
the Educators. Traditional methods include visits, in-school programs and field
trips is you are in the vicinity.
Virtual programming
includes a robust website with online collections and options for a virtual
visit. Mystic Seaport for Educators,
is a dynamic and accessible website for Educators. Artifacts and documents, and
maps have from the Museum’s collection have been digitized and enhanced with
audio recordings, transcripts, and interactive features to create engaging
opportunities for the study of history, making them appropriate resources for
Educators to use themselves, or as a great base of primary sources for students
The resources cover everything from whaling to immigration, and new content is
added every year, making it an ever-expanding resource!
The Museum also offers Virtual Education
Programs, which are the next step in connecting with the collections at Mystic
Seaport. The museum uses Skype and state-of-the-art
technology in their own production studio to showcase artifacts in the collection
and discuss what it means to be a curator with schools across the country,
from Minnesota to the Northeast. “It’s a pretty incredible set-up,” Boudreau
said. “We have a green screen and multiple cameras, which allows us to examine
artifacts in detail with students. In a lot of cases, they can get closer to
the artifacts with a virtual program than they could in person!”
Virtual Education Programs can be tailored to
fit your curriculum, and offer plenty of opportunities for working with primary
sources, making abstract history suddenly very tangible. It’s also a great
opportunity to learn about how and why museums preserve the past. For more
information about the Virtual Education Programs, visit http://www.mysticseaport.org/learn/k-12-programs/virtual-programs
.
What
the Histocrats love about Mystic Seaport?
Mystic Seaport is an
institution already making strong connections with Educators. The Mystic
Seaport Education Community is a robust that includes educators, families and
students. They have ongoing collaboration with educators that they openly
share. Community members are involved in
Mystic Seaport projects. It is exciting to see collaboration among both
groups. The Mystic Seaport for Educators
Summer Fellowship even allows educators to come work at the Museum for a week
during the summer on a research project for the website. The Fellowship
includes behind-the-scenes access to the Museum, an opportunity to work with
artifacts first-hand, and even a field trip! (Email john.boudreau@mysticseaport.org
for details.) This is a superb example of how museums and educators can support
each other in engaging the public in the study of the past.
