How can educators of all disciplines prepare students to be active and informed participants in a democracy? Join us to explore this question through the lens of six Smithsonian collections! Discover how museum objects can help learners explore the challenges and opportunities of living in a democra

In support of the traveling exhibition of Girlhood (It's complicated), the Smithsonian has developed a set of curricular materials and platforms to create meaningful learning opportunities for girls (and all students) in your learning network connected to this content.

For decades, teachers drilled American school children using flash cards that gave simple arithmetic problems. The advent of inexpensive electronic calculators in the 1970s made it possible to do much routine arithmetic automatically. To teach school children the meaning of basic operations, new dev

In the early 1960s, the Chicago firm of Playskool introduced this educational toy for children three to six years old, seeking to give them an early familiarity with numbers. It has two rows of relatively large rotating wooden rectangular blocks, each with a row of square rotating wooden blocks belo

"Although women's empowerment can have a revolutionary effect on society, it doesn't always look like a revolution. Today, organizations like UN Women work to empower women in rural areas through economic programs that help them “claim their rights to land, leadership, opportunities, and choices�

"The National Museum of American History has over 2 million items in its collections, spanning every topic you could think of. And from wooden crosses to baseball uniforms to costume butterfly wings, our collections show that Latinx people have been an important part of U.S. history since the nation

This Learning Lab collection explores the life of Anna Dickinson, an abolitionist who became a prominent public speaker as a teenager during the Civil War. Consider the following guiding and supporting questions as you navigate the collection: What is the power of youth voice in the fight against

Costume worn by Lin-Manuel Miranda portraying Alexander Hamilton in the original Broadway production of Hamilton: An American Musical. The costume consists of a white shirt with ruffles, green coat, green waistcoat with small gold metal decoration on proper right side, green breeches, a pair of blac

This poster was displayed at the Chinatown (New York) Health Fair, 1973. The first Chinatown street health fair was held in 1971 by Asian American activists concerned that Chinatown residents lacked access to adequate health care. The activists, many of whom were college students and inspired by the

“Suffering from "shell shock and a general breakdown," Charles Mackall and James Randall arrived in Philadelphia in September 1918 from military service in France in the Great War. Mackall had been in trenches on the front line and had lain unconscious for 10 days. Randall had been a water tank dr