Field Trip!

While in Madison, I took a trip to the Wisconsin Historical Museum http://historicalmuseum.wisconsinhistory.org/. The museum is located on Madison’s Capitol Square at 30 North Carroll Street.  The museum has four floors each with different themes and exhibits.  The fourth floor housed the newest “Wisconsin Innovators” exhibit and a community themed exhibit which showed more of the union and political past of Wisconsin.  The third floor showed three different exhibits that all focused around Wisconsin history such as immigration, frontier Wisconsin, and everyday life. The second floor was completely focused on the Wisconsin Native Americans.  The first floor had the museum store and a small coat and gathering area that had a small exhibit on Wisconsin beer history.

I thought the Wisconsin Historical Museum would be a wonderful place to bring students for a field trip especially for fourth graders who focus on Wisconsin and Native American history.  The museum offers a variety of guided tours and further field trip information at their site: http://historicalmuseum.wisconsinhistory.org/FieldTrips/AboutFieldTrips.aspx.  The three tours offered are: Native People of Wisconsin, Why History Matters, and What's the Big Idea? (for secondary students).  As the site states the, “one-hour guided tours will challenge students to think critically about Wisconsin history and create personal connections to the past through Museum exhibits. Tour guides utilize the "Thinking Like a Historian" educational model, in which students are expected to actively participate by offering reactions and questions to their guide and classmates.”  The site offered connections to educational standards documentation as well as preparing for your field trip and educational resources documentation.  The cost is $4 per student and adult; the fee is free for school employees.  There is also a reduced rate for schools with a 50% or greater economic disadvantage rate.