High school to graduate levels. The primary sources in this workshop can be used to strengthen critical reading skills, support inquiry-based learning exercises, and expose students to the stories of trial and error that lie behind most scientific or engineering breakthroughs.
Archival Education
Experimentation and Innovation: Building the Hale Telescope
Education Program Manager, Rockefeller Archive Center
Explore Further
Archival Education
Learning About and Creating Student Archives
Grades 3-6. Introduces students to archives, primary sources, and secondary sources. This flexible unit includes nine lessons in which students document their own learning experiences by creating, describing, and organizing primary sources. Each student’s personal papers are aggregated into a class archive that is then described in a mock finding aid.
Issues in Philanthropy
Success and Failure in Community-Based Healthcare: The East Harlem Health Center
An innovative nursing program gathered crucial data and brought healthcare to needy families, but ultimately lost its way.
Archival Education
From Dream to Reality: Building the Hale Telescope Primary Source STEAM Workshop
Grades 8-12. This project describes to students the great hurdle in the Hale Telescope’s construction: successfully transporting the 40-ton, 200-inch mirror and its packing materials from upstate New York to the top of Palomar Mountain in southern California. Documents include shipping manifests, conversations regarding the movement of the mirror, and photographic documentation of the mirror’s…
Archival Education
The Cold War
High school to graduate levels. This workshop places students into the role of program officers during the 1940s and 1950s. Drawing on twenty-two records from the Rockefeller Archive Center collections, the project explores philanthropic activities during a period of ideological and geopolitical tensions.
Archival Education
The War of the Worlds, Fake News, and Media Literacy Primary Source Unit
Grades 4-8. This unit offers multiple entry points into developing an understanding of media literacy around the War of the Worlds broadcast. It includes a midpoint writing assessment, whole class capstone debate, and final independent writing assessment.