Field Trips

Now Available: Virtual Field Trips

Calendar Open for Fall thru February 2021

With the limitations of travel and field trips, we expanded our virtual field trips to now include:

• NEW! Guided Tours of the Museum Galleries

• Classes Featuring Artifacts

• Costumed Interpretation

For questions about virtual field trips, see our FAQs.

On-site groups will not be scheduled for the remainder of 2020. For individual/family group visits to the museum, please visit: https://tnmuseum.org/plan-your-visit

Classes Featuring Artifacts: (Monday-Friday, 30 minutes, minimum of 20 students)

Mystery Artifact:

Mystery Artifact classes will give students the opportunity to see artifacts from our teaching collection from all angles. Students will work through a series of questions to analyze the items as primary sources and determine what the artifact is and how it was used.

Mystery Artifact - First Peoples - SSP.01, SSP.02, SSP.03, SSP.04, SSP.05, SSP.06, 3.19, 5.27, 5.28, 6.01, 6.02, 7.54, 7.55

In this session, your students will be presented with three objects representing life for the First Peoples of Tennessee. The artifact selection will include: an atlatl hook, axe head and nut cracker.

Download the Informational Packet

Mystery Artifact - Life on the Tennessee Frontier - SSP.01, SSP.02, SSP.03, SSP.04, SSP.05, 3.18, 3.31, 4.21, 4.22, 8.28, 8.52

In this session, your students will be presented with five objects representing life on the Tennessee frontier in the 1700s. The artifact selection will include: a cotton card, mortar and pestle, candle mold, chamber pot and butter mold.

Download the Informational Packet

Mystery Artifact - Civil War Medicine - SSP.01, SSP.02, SSP.03, SSP.04, SSP.05

In this session, your students will be presented with five objects representing methods of medical treatment on the battlefield during the Civil War. The artifact selection will include: a bone file, pill roller, conical trephine and a wooden stethoscope.

Download the Informational Packet

Mystery Artifact - Tennessee at the Turn of the Century - SSP.01, SSP.02, SSP.03, SSP.04, SSP.05, SSP.06, 5.05, 5.14, 5.22

In this session, your students will be presented with three objects representing the ways in which technology and culture were changing in Tennessee from 1860-1945. The artifact selection will include: a phonograph cylinder, wooden textile spool, and an ice hook.

Download the Informational Packet

Costumed Interpretations: (Monday-Friday, 30 minutes, minimum of 20 students)

Costumed interpretations give students the opportunity to interact with an educator dressed in a historic costume. Students will be presented with information about the figure’s life and the time period that they were living in.

Costumed – Long Hunter - SSP.01, SSP.02, SSP.03, SSP.04, SSP.05, SSP.06, 3.11, 3.12, 3.20, 3.22, 3.29, 3.30, 3.31, 4.01, 5.28, 8.28, TN.05, TN.06, TN.11, TN.12, TN.16

Long Hunters were some of the first explorers of European descent to enter what would become Tennessee, and the first European descendant interaction many Native American tribes had. Talk to a Long Hunter about why they travelled into Tennessee, what they would have carried with them, interactions with Native American tribes, and of course, why we call them Long Hunters today.

Download the Informational Packet

Costumed - Civil War Soldier - SSP.01, SSP.02, SSP.03, SSP.04, SSP.05, SSP.06, 4.25, 4.27, 4.30, 5.41, 8.62

The daily life of a Civil War soldier included far more than battles. Students will learn what soldiers would have worn, eaten, how they would set-up camp, and kept themselves entertained.

Download the Informational Packet

Costumed - Doughboy - SSP.01, SSP.02, SSP.03, SSP.04, SSP.05, 5.10, 5.11, 5.12, 5.49, AAH.28, TN.47, US.23, US.24, US.25, US.26, W.31, W.33, W.35, W.37

Although the United States did not enter World War I until it was nearing the end, American Doughboys experienced gruesome warfare all the same. Learn about the life of a Doughboy including their uniform and equipment, daily life, involvement in the war, and what trench warfare was like.

Download the Informational Packet

Costumed - Suffragist - SSP.01, SSP.02, SSP.03, SSP.04, SSP.05, SSP.06, 5.09, 5.47, 5.54, 8.42, AAH.24, CI.14

Your students are the latest to join in the women's suffrage movement in this 1920s themed program. Students will learn why suffragists wore white, what the arguments for and against the vote were, and how Harry Burn's vote affected everyone.

Download the Informational Packet

Costumed - Oak Ridge Worker - SSP.01, SSP.02, SSP.03, SSP.04, SSP.05, SSP.06, 5.18, 5.20, 5.23, 5.24, 5.49, CI.10, CI.10

Few people know the impact Oak Ridge had on WWII and that’s because the entire town was a secret! Learn what it was like to work and live in a secret city during WWII where daily reminders not to tell your neighbors what you do all day were commonplace, and even the workers didn’t know the impact they would have.

Download the Informational Packet

Guided Tours of the Museum Galleries: (Monday-Friday, 30 minutes, minimum of 20 students)

Students will be virtually led through the museum galleries with a museum educator highlighting artifacts to tell the story of Tennessee history.

First Peoples - SSP.01, 3.19, 3.22, 5.27, 5.28

Who were the first people to live in the Tennessee area?  What where their lives like? Join us as we explore the prehistoric Native American artifacts in our collection and learn how these objects tell us about our state’s past.  We will cover Paleo, Archaic, Woodland, and Mississippian periods.

African Americans in Early Tennessee - 3.27, 3.31, 4.19, 4.21, 4.22, 8.34, 8.35, 8.36, AAH.06, AAH.07, AAH.11, AAH.12, TN.27

Explore with us the often-overlooked contributions and lives of African Americans in Tennessee’s early history.  We will look at personal stories of individuals that lived here in Tennessee from before we were a state to pre-Civil War.

Becoming Tennessee (Frontier) - SSP.01, SSP.05, 3.31, 4.01 5.29, 5.30, 5.33, 5.34, 5.35, 5.36, 5.40, 8.13, 8.28, AAH.07, TN.09, TN.12, TN.24

How did Tennessee go from a sparsely populated frontier to a center of national politics?  Follow us from the early attempts to become a state to the Age of Jackson when people from Tennessee were at the center of major national issues through the eyes of Native American tribes, African Americans that were enslaved, and white settlers.

Frontier Printshop - 3.31

Learn about the process of printing in a frontier print shop, the importance the printing press held in passing information quickly, and what a job as an apprentice would look like as a young person living in the 1700s.

Civil War & Reconstruction - 4.25, 4.27, 4.33, 4.37, 5.41, 5.43, 5.45, 5.46, 8.70, 8.73

Tennessee may have been a Confederate state, but that doesn’t tell the whole story of how divided Tennesseans were over the issues of the Civil War and Reconstruction.  Join us as we look at the issues facing Tennesseans during this time of change.

Civil Rights - SSP.01, SSP.05, 5.24, 5.50

Reconstruction is over and the 13^th, 14^th, and 15^th Amendments part of the Constitution, but that doesn’t mean that African Americans have equal rights. From Ida B. Wells to Diane Nash, African Americans in Tennessee continue the fight for equality.

Ratified! Tennessee and Women’s Right to Vote - SSP.01, SSP.05, 2.26, 5.09, 5.47, 8.42, AAH.24, AAH.44

Learn about the journey to secure women’s right to vote through key figures in the movement, the arguments for and against women’s suffrage, and Tennessee’s role on August 18, 1920.

Frequently Asked Questions: