Grades 6, 7, and 8

MATH & SCIENCE

Backyard Ecology Labs: Awesome Autotrophs

Have you ever seen a carnivorous plant? Come and investigate our garden’s immobile warriors. Explore life from the perspective of a plant and see how some plants obtain the food and nutrients they need, reproduce, and keep predators away—all from the comfort of their own flower beds! Field study guides are provided for note taking.
1 hour MST: 1, 6, 7 LA: 1 Arts: 1
Available Tuesday through Friday
(maximum 30 students)

Backyard Ecology Labs: Deciphering Decomposers

Experience a truly unique way of investigating ecology and the delicate balance of backyard science. Students learn about nutrient recycling au natural as we delve into the rather odiferous lives of detritivores. They embark on a soil safari and search for nature’s cleaning crew in the ground right below their feet!
1 hour MST: 1, 6, 7 LA: 1 Arts: 1
Available Tuesday through Friday
(maximum 30 students)

Backyard Ecology Labs: Inspecting Insectivores

Bugs for breakfast? While this experience may not be for the faint of heart, it’s sure to engage the scientifically curious. Students take a close look at animals that love to munch on bugs and get to meet a live scorpion. Students also observe how certain feeding behaviors have impacted insect anatomy and learn clever ways that different insects have evolved to catch bugs.
1 hour MST: 1, 6, 7 LA: 1 Arts: 1
Available Tuesday through Friday
(maximum 30 students)

Backyard Ecology Labs: Perplexed by Pollinators

Learn why pollinators are so critical to humans, ways plants and their pollinators are linked, and how plants and pollinators have evolved to more efficiently interact. Students explore the concepts of interdependence and co-evolution, as well as some big questions about the not-so-big organisms that live in our own backyards.
1 hour MST: 1, 6, 7 LA: 1 Arts: 1
Available Tuesday through Friday
(maximum 30 students)

Engineering Play and Design

Teachers become the observers as students actively engage in problem-solving, team-building, and engineering-design activities inspired by play. Students will use state-of-the-art interactives in the Field of Play exhibit to tackle several fun and open-ended problems using their best critical thinking, their most effective communication skills, and their most innovative design solutions. This experience is all about teamwork!
2 hours MST: 1, 2, 5, 7 LA: 4
Available Tuesday through Friday

Playing with Physics

This science-based experience is designed to help students put their knowledge of physics (and play!) into action. Students make observations and explain their thinking as they investigate the forces at work in the Field of Play exhibit. This experience allows students to work with and demonstrate their understanding of some of the basic concepts in physics.
1 1/2 hours MST: 1, 4, 5, 7 LA: 4
Available Tuesday through Friday

Predators and Protection: The Art of the Butterfly

Students enter the fabulous Dancing Wings Butterfly Garden^® with a palette of colors, a keen eye for design, and a splash of curiosity, and return with some surprising discoveries! Students explore the ways that butterflies protect themselves by observing butterflies in action. Students then become predators and protectors themselves as they learn and play through a movement game that brings the colorful and amazing art of the butterfly world alive.
1 1/2 hours MST: 1 Arts: 1
Available Tuesday through Friday

SOCIAL STUDIES

Birth of an Industrial Nation

What was it like to be an immigrant on a working assembly line? Students take on the role of a toy automobile factory president, efficiency expert, foreman, or line worker. They run time trials to explore the assembly-line process and discuss how mass production changed daily life.
1 hour SS: 1, 3, 4, 5 LA: 1, 3, 4
Available Tuesday through Friday

Updated! Coming to America: The Immigration Experience

What was it like to be an immigrant at the beginning of the 20th century? After participating in the Immigration Game—an interactive experience that teaches where immigrants came from, their challenges, and how it felt to be a newcomer in a strange land—students engage in a reenactment of Immigration Recognition Day, a historical event that took place in Rochester in the 1920s.
1 1/2 hour SS: 1, 3, 4, 5 LA: 1, 3, 4
Available Tuesday through Friday

Fashions, Foods, and Fads: Exploring Geography

How would our lives be different if we could only buy foods that were native to New York State? This question and others are the focus of this museum-wide quest where students work in teams to gather data about the things they use each day. After collecting the data, each team will create a graphic representation of its findings and lead a discussion about interdependence around the globe.
1 1/2 hours SS: 3 LA: 1, 3
Available Tuesday through Friday

NEW! Map Trek II: Wish You Were Here

Wish You Were Here After exploration time in the National Geographic MAPS exhibit, student cartographers will navigate through the museum using special maps to find specific landmarks. Combining engaging destinations with important mapping skills, students will work in small groups and put their knowledge of map reading into action.
1 ½ hour SS: 3 LA 1
Available Tuesday through Friday, through December 21, 2010

LANGUAGE ARTS

Fractured Fairy Tales: Playing with Story Elements

In traditional fairy tales, readers learn that Hope + Heroes = Happiness. What happens to this formula when we fracture these tales? In Reading Adventureland’s Fairy-Tale section, students use a variety of literary landscapes to fracture favorite tales in unique and creative ways. Students retell favorite stories adding their own twists. They may tell the story from a new perspective, explore the impacts of cause and effect, or introduce a new character. Familiarity with fairy-tale themes and motifs is recommended. Activities are adjusted to age.
1 1/2 hours LA: 1, 2, 3 Arts: 1, 2
Available Wednesday through Friday

Objects Alive: Playing with Personification

Students will never look at inanimate objects in the same way again after participating in this lively lesson focusing on personification and character development. Curriculum connections abound as students use both writing and drawing to bring the museum’s renowned collections alive.
1 1/2 hours LA: 2, 4
Available Tuesday through Friday

R.S.V.P. to a Most Peculiar Invitation

Your students are cordially invited to a truly nonsensical housewarming party in Reading Adventureland’s Upside-Down Nonsense House. Bring your scarves and mittens to help “warm” the house and “shoot the breeze” while trying to make sense of a topsy-turvy world where Life - Logic = Laughs. Students learn that wordplay is the key to nonsense as they engage in activities that extend their understanding of homonyms and homographs, idioms and rhythms, verses and rhymes, and more.
1 1/2 hours LA: 1, 3 Arts: 1
Available Wednesday through Friday

Shipwrecked! The Adventure Game

Character development and story structure are just two of the many literary skills that take on life-size proportions in the Adventure section of Reading Adventureland. Working in small groups, students build their own adventure story based on the choices they make and the crew of characters they create. Using a ship’s log, they keep track of their adventure. Back at school they can write the full tale of the characters and settings they imagined.
1 1/2 hours LA: 1, 2, 4 Arts: 2
Available Wednesday through Friday

Sleuth School

Students attend a class in the Mystery Mansion School of Artful Sleuthing to learn and practice the skills literary detectives like Nancy Drew and Sherlock Holmes use to solve mysteries. Students need a sharp eye and a quick mind as they make careful observations, collect and interpret evidence, discover relationships, and draw conclusions.
1 1/2 hours LA: 1, 3, 4 MST: 1, 7
Available Wednesday through Friday

Spellbinders: The Wizardry of Words

Why do we call a captivating book “spellbinding?” Perhaps it’s because writers weave words in the same way that sorcerers cast spells. In this entrancing experience, students explore how great fantasy writers create worlds with words and use techniques that transport us to new places. Students use excerpts from classic fantasy literature to guide their exploration of the Fantasy section in Reading Adventureland. Then they try their hand at creating fantastic worlds of their own through the wizardry of words.
1 1/2 hours LA: 1, 2, 3 Arts: 3
Available Wednesday through Friday

Inside Stories: Unmasking the Superhero

After exploring the concept of character development in the American Comic Book Heroes: The Battle of Good vs. Evil exhibit, students consider the everyday challenges that superheroes face. Students investigate with their peers what it might really be like to be “behind the mask” and then develop their own heroic dialogue bubbles in an activity sure to strengthen reading skills.
1 hour LA: 2, 3
Available Tuesday through Friday

SPECIAL OFFERINGS

Behind the Scenes Career Day

Students want to know what goes on behind the scenes at the National Museum of Play. Who takes care of the artifacts? How are toys selected for the museum collections? Who designs the exhibits and who decides what exhibits are coming next? In this unique experience, students will get a glimpse of the museum’s inner workings as they talk to curators and exhibit designers. Students will practice interviewing skills, participate in simulated work experiences using objects from collections. Learn about the variety of careers available in a museum which will help them make important career choices in their future.
2 hours, 10 a.m.–noon Career Standards 1, 2
35 students maximum
Cost: $8.50 per student
November 5 and March 11

Debate for a Day

This workshop allows students to hone tools of debate and improve listening, speaking, and thinking skills. Following a brief orientation, the museum provides primary-source documents and hands-on experiences for students to develop arguments either for or against selected topics. Students work in teams to gather and present information that supports their case.
4 hours, 9:30 a.m.–1:30 p.m. LA: 1, 3, 4 SS: 5
$8.50 per student 100 student maximum
Available Tuesday through Friday by advanced reservation only.