Field Trips

On this page you can find information about field trips, scavenger hunt downloads, and Frequently Asked Questions. 

A visit to the Tennessee State Museum and Capitol are free. However, you must reserve a specific date and time through the museum’s scheduling office AND obtain a confirmation letter from the museum.

Looking for Virtual Field Trips? Click Here. 

State Capitol Field Trips

600 Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd., Nashville, Tennessee

Capitol Tour  45-50 minutes

On a guided tour of the Tennessee State Capitol, you will join an educator on a 45 minute long guided tour. The tour will cover the history of the state of Tennessee, state and local government, and interesting stories of the building itself. 

Standards: K.16, 1.15, 1.17, 1.17, 1.19, 2.22, 2.23, 2.24, 2.25, 2.26, 4.14, 4.39, 5.36, 5.47, 5.54, 8.23, 8.28, 8.53, 8.67, 8.68

Tennessee State Museum Field Trips

1000 Rosa L. Parks Blvd., Nashville, Tennessee

In-person field trips are back! Museum educators are ready to guide your students through exhibit galleries and hands-on programs as you explore Tennessee’s history. 

Guided Gallery Tours (30 minutes each)

Each field trip is made up of three guided programs, 30 minutes each, that your students will rotate through. Every program is led by a museum educator, standards-based, and will use artifacts, exhibits, and inquiry-based discussion to explore specific topics in Tennessee history.

Choose three programs that fit your needs. Two hours will be required to complete this field trip.

First Peoples 

Who were the first people to live in the land we now call Tennessee? What were 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. 

Highlights include: A mastodon tusk, Archaic nutting stone, Mississippian moccasin, Human effigy statue, dugout canoe

State Standards Addressed: SSP.01, SSP.05, 3.19, 3.22, 5.27, 5.28

Becoming Tennessee 

How did Tennessee go from a sparsely populated frontier to an American state that produced two U.S. presidents? Told through the perspectives of Native American tribes, enslaved African Americans, and white settlers, follow us from the early attempts to become a state to the “Age of Jackson.”

Highlights include: Conestoga Wagon, John Sevier’s watch, Richard Poyner chair, Chickasaw crafted moccasins

Standards Addressed: 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

African Americans in Early Tennessee 

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, free and enslaved, that lived in Tennessee pre-statehood to pre-Civil War.

Highlights include: Abraham Bledsoe portrait, Log cabin, Richard Poyner chair, Wessyngton plantation canning bench

TN Standards Addressed: SSP.01, SSP.05, 3.27, 3.31, 4.19, 4.21, 4.22, 8.34, 8.35, 8.36

Frontier Print Shop 

Don't forget to "mind your Ps & Qs" in this interactive demonstration. A frontier printer will take your students through the process of 18th century printing. Learn how Benjamin Franklin & Tennessee's first printers George & Elizabeth Roulstone printed the news.

Highlights include: See a functioning colonial era print shop. Receive a souvenir print. 

TN Standards Addressed: SSP.01, SSP.05, 1.25, 3.31

The Cherokee & Chickasaw: Their Life, Culture, & Removal 

Follow the complex story of indigenous peoples' struggle against encroachment and removal from their homes and land. Ponder quotes from John Ross, Major Ridge, Andrew Jackson, and David Crockett, as we discuss what led to this tragic era in Tennessee history. 

Highlights include: A dugout canoe, Cherokee Phoenix newspaper, Chickasaw moccasins, and a pitcher from the Treaty of Hopewell.

TN Standards Addressed: SSP.01, SSP.05, 4.18, 5.38, 8.47

The Civil War in Tennessee

The Civil War is one of the defining events in Tennessee history. What was it like for the average Tennessean? We will explore the debate over secession, major battles, soldiers’ lives, and the cost of war on individuals.

Highlights include: John Brown pike, 12lb. Napoleon cannon, a recreation of a soldier's tent, soldier’s prosthetic leg

TN Standards Addressed: SSP.01, SSP.05, 4.28, 4.34, 5.41, 5.42, 8.62, 8.63

Tennessee’s Reconstruction 

Tennessee’s Reconstruction was very different from the other former Confederate States. This program examines the ways that African Americans, Unionists, and former Confederates confronted this new and rapidly changing era in the state’s history.

TN Standards Addressed: SSP.01, SSP.05, 4.39, 4.40, 5.43, 5.44, 5.45, 8.68, 8.70, 8.72, 8.73

The Fight for Civil Rights  

With Reconstruction over and the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments ratified, African Americans still did not have equal rights. From Ida B. Wells to Diane Nash, learn how African Americans in Tennessee continued the fight for equality.

Highlights include: Nashville Sit-in stool, Martin Luther King poster, African American legislators, the story of the Clinton 12

TN Standards Addressed: SSP.01, SSP.05, 5.24, 5.50

WWII Home Front in Tennessee 

The efforts of WWII were not only felt by the military forces overseas, but by the women serving on the home front. Students will explore the contributions of women during the war through rationing, working factory jobs, service roles, and inside the gates of Tennessee’s Secret City, Oak Ridge. 

Highlights include: WASP uniform, ration book, Oak Ridge artifacts

TN Standards Addressed: SSP.01, SSP.05, 5.16, 5.20, 5.49

Hands-On Classes (30 minutes each)

Artifact Detective 

Use your critical thinking skills to analyze artifacts, draw conclusions, and determine what they tell us about Tennessee’s past. Can your students identify our “mystery artifacts,” what they were used for, and what they reveal about life in Tennessee?

TN Standards Addressed: SSP.01, SSP.02, SSP.04, SSP.05

Weaving and Spinning

How did you get your clothes on the Tennessee frontier? Follow the steps from harvesting raw materials to wearing a brand new shirt as we explore the job of clothes making. Join us in the fun, hands-on program to learn about how different life was to our own.

TN Standards Addressed: SSP.01, SSP.02, SSP.04, SSP.05

Civil War Spy 

Tennesseans found many ways to join the war effort during the Civil War. While women couldn’t become soldiers, they did find other ways to help, including becoming spies. Can your students decode the clues and find important information by using actual methods from the Civil War? Find out with this hands-on program.

TN Standards Addressed: SSP.01, SSP.02, SSP.04, SSP.05

Self-Guided Field Trips

The best way to see the museum is by experiencing the interactive galleries. Students, led by their teachers and chaperones, will use a grade level appropriate scavenger hunt to explore through all five permanent galleries. On their journey they will see real artifacts like Daniel Boone’s musket, Andrew Jackson’s top hat and Dolly Parton’s suit, all while engaging with exhibit interactives.

When you arrive, a Museum Educator will greet your group, explain the museum’s manners, and lead your group to the gallery entrance to start your field trip experience.

For adult groups: Please fill out the online reservation form and our scheduling coordinator will work with you on options best suited for your group.