Website Review: The Cyrus Tang Hall of China

THE CYRUS TANG HALL OF CHINA from The Field Museum is an online exhibition exploring the history of China.

Users begin by exploring the exhibition. The exhibition is divided into an introduction, five galleries, and two interactives exploring the diverse landscapes, ethnicities, social statuses, and lived experiences across time and space. Artifacts in the exhibition range thousands of years.

Each highlighted artifact includes background information, visuals, and background information.

The interactive elements allow users to explore information about China through a timeline and map video as well as a 360 virtual exhibit exploration tool.

Librarians will find the online exhibition to be an engaging way to experience the history of China. A supplemental website contains educational materials that focus on object-based learning approaches. These tools connect well with information skills and information inquiry activities in the library.

To visit the website, go to http://chinahall.fieldmuseum.org/.

To visit the educator toolkit, go to http://www.fieldmuseum.org/disc…/on-exhibit/china/educators/.

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.