Synergy: Learning with Objects

An object is a material thing that can be seen or touched. An artifact is an object made by humans. From an arrowhead to a piece of clothing, objects are useful in the study of history.

THE APARTMENT by Alexandra Litvina chronicles the history of Russia from 1899-2018 through the people and objects in an apartment. Using a scrapbook approach, the author and illustrator follow the Muromtsevs who live in an apartment in Moscow. Readers learn about how the family and Russia as a whole changes from generation to generation through the 20th century. The Bolshevik Revolution, two World Wars, the rise of the USSR, the Cold War, the space race, and the rise of the Russian Federation are seen through the eyes of the Muromtsevs. Filled with engaging illustrations, primary source documents and fascinating artifacts, readers are invited to participate in the story by examining objects in the apartment as they change over time.

TEACHING HISTORY WITH 100 OBJECTS from The British Museum provides 100 objects to inspires students’ interest in history. Users can search for objects by date, place, or theme. Resources are also available by age and curriculum topic. For instance, the collection includes a Jesse Jackson for President badge from 1984. Background information, the larger context of the item, teaching ideas, and classroom materials are available.

Teaching History with 100 Objects http://teachinghistory100.org/

ARC courtesy of Abrams Books for Young Readers.

Digital Collection: Historical Scientific Instrument Gallery

HISTORICAL SCIENTIFIC INSTRUMENT GALLERY
University of Nebraska-Lincoln

Contents: From optics and magnetism to induction and vacuum discharges, this digital collection includes a wide range of science equipment. The website is easy to use providing just a photograph and brief description of each item.

Classroom Connections: Ask students to select one of the many historical artifacts to explore. Then, investigate whether this scientific instrument is still used or whether it’s been replaced.

Featured Digital Objects:
Mystery Objects - https://goo.gl/y1VIu7
Object Index - https://goo.gl/4gBRTT

To visit the collection, http://www.unl.edu/…/historical-scientific-instrument-galle….

Digital Collection: Science & Society Picture Library

SCIENCE & SOCIETY PICTURE LIBRARY

Contents: This visual collection includes materials from three museums focusing on history, science, media, and railways. The objects can be accessed by theme or collection. Themes include world wars, arctic expeditions, astronomy, and trains.

Classroom Connections: Ask students to select a theme and explore the images. Then brainstorm questions related to a thematic collection or particular artifact. Use other resources to address the questions and share the results.

Featured Digital Objects:
Arctic Exploration - https://goo.gl/Vjzwus
Trench Warfare - https://goo.gl/y4op5x
Horses - https://goo.gl/gqvq0I

To visit the collection, http://www.scienceandsociety.co.uk

Website Review: Smithsonian's History Explorer

THE SMITHSONIAN’S HISTORY EXPLORER website provides access to high-quality teaching and learning materials.

The Lesson & Activities section contains hundreds of standards-based educational resources. Users can search by key words and filter results by grade, resource type, historical era, and cross curricular connections.

The Interactives & Media area features audio, video, and interactive resources such as 3D tours, learning games, and tutorials.

The Museum Artifacts element uses an object-based learning approach applying artifacts from the Smithsonian’s collection.

The Themes section explores major topics from American history such as immigration, civil rights movement, westward expansion, and War of 1812.

The Books area features selected children’s books that represent particular historical eras. These titles can be organized by reading level.

The Teacher Resources provides materials to help educators teach with primary resources. This section also links to a variety of professional development materials and opportunities.

The Web Links area links to over one hundred useful websites related to American History. These websites are specifically aimed at K-12 youth.

Librarians will find many opportunities to connect classroom teachers with standards-based activities and resources. Specifically seek out those materials that stress inquiry-based learning and primary sources.

To visit the website, go to http://historyexplorer.si.edu.

App Review: The New Immigrants: NYC 1880-1924

THE NEW IMMIGRANTS: NYC 1880-1924 by Vanguard Direct and the New York Department of Education invites users to explore the immigrant experience in America.

This outstanding history app is divided into six sections: a new beginning, the migration process, tenement life, earning a living, nativism, and assimilation and cultural preservation.

Users begin by scrolling down to the first topic, a new beginning. Or, they can click on one of the six sections. Each section provides an overview along with a sidebar containing three areas to explore. The sidebar options reveal a primary source document and an explanation. Users can then swipe through additional examples, choose the information icon for related materials, reveal questions and prompts geared at particular grade levels, save materials to a collection, or use the crop tool to zoom and crop an area of the screen.

Navigation is very intuitive making the app easy to explore and use. The images and other elements are high-quality. Students can create a collection of their materials, print or email PDFs from their collections, and use the search tool to explore related documents.

Teaching materials are provided for elementary, middle school, and high school levels. They include document based performance tasks along with instructional strategies and activities.

Social studies teachers and librarians will enjoy the focus on the carefully curated primary source collection of over 100 artifacts woven into the app including documents, newspaper articles, cartoons, photos, audio, video, and more. The New Immigrants app deals with a broad spectrum of topics from the journey and hardships to the triumphs of the immigrant experience. As such, it should work well in a classroom situation where it’s important to explore multiple perspectives and experiences.

Librarians will find this to be an excellent addition to the school’s history app collection. There’s a need for an app like this on every topic in American history!

To download the app, go to iTunes.