Going to the New York Historical Society was an enlightening experience. I enjoyed seeing the artifacts and I also enjoyed the activity they had us do in relating to the artifacts. They first showed us around the Luce collections and then gave us the assignment of finding an artifact of our own choosing. We were to decide what the object was and what it was used for and then come up with questions about our object. I choose a pair of boots that were labeled as being used at Gettysburg. After answering the list of questions we were given I came up with one additional question that could have changed the answer to all the other questions, and that was “Which side wore the boots, Union or Confederate?”
This could change everything because some Southern soldiers brought their slaves with them to care for the soldier’s things; whereas a Union soldier would have been caring for his own things, without the aid of a slave.
I would like to use this activity in my classroom because it was a great way to engage teachers and I think students would response pretty much the same. I think the most important hook to this was the fact that we were allowed to select our own items to interpret.
We also went to the Museum of Nature History, which housed some very cool things. I really liked some of the photographs of bird in flight. I took some pictures, but my camera does not do justice to what I saw. I took away from this museum the importance of getting our students into places like this. We have a very nice Nature History museum in Denver, and even though we face the hardship of getting fieldtrips approved and funded, we need to take on the challenge and talk to our parent organizations to help get our kids into places where they can see things they may not see anyplace else.
