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ShapeKit
What’s It Like?
NMAAHC provides teachers with a trusted location to access materials — including tons of primary materials and media — to support their teaching of African-American history and culture. Of course, it would be great to be able to visit the actual museum in D.C., but if that isn’t possible, the online museum is full of rich content that can easily be integrated into the curriculum. Teachers can search the museum’s collection of close to 37,000 historical artifacts to find materials that fit into their area of study. The artifacts would easily fit into teacher-led presentations or a student-centered primary document analysis activity. In addition to the large collection, students and teachers can explore the exhibitions (presentations of objects from the museum’s collections) and stories (curator-led and contextualized tours of topics) to dig into the NMAAHC’s materials in more guided ways. Teachers may also want to take advantage of the professional learning events that cover strategies for using African-American primary sources in the classroom and methods for discussing issues around race.
Price: Free
Grades: K-12
Rating: 4/5
Pros: An impressive collection of well-organized, engaging media.
Cons: Specific curriculum materials aren’t provided.
Bottom line: While there aren’t ready-to-go curricular materials, this modern, well-curated, and well-contextualized digital collection is sure to inspire compelling lessons.
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