Mr. Powers’ Mobile Museum
This activity was the prequel to the introduction of our thematic learning, Networks of Exchange. My World History class began this unit by visiting Mr. Powers’ Mobile Museum, focusing on East Asia and the Silk Road. There were five stations in this activity, demonstrating artifacts from Asia, concerning the following topics: trade, religion, caste system, and culture and innovations. These activities had built-in lessons concerning putting the objects into context with the particular culture and the phenomenon that was identified at each station. Students, after going to all the individual stations, were to select an item from each cultural phenomenon and discuss it in their journal. This year, my students will be constantly writing either in their journal when taking notes and/or evaluating primary and secondary sources.
The artifacts loaned for the activity were from the Lam Museum of Anthropology at Wake Forest in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. We have partnered with the museum and the curator, Ms. Tina Smith, for the purpose of integrating elements of culture into the Social Studies curriculum. I am currently writing the standards for a Cultural Anthropology curriculum with the Lam Museum. Additionally, I am excited to announce that I will be teaching a Cultural Anthropology class in the Spring at TMSA High School.