Jamestown Settlement and the American Revolution Museum at Yorktown have been crucial education sites for generations. With many districts beginning their year with socially distanced learning, the Jamestown-Yorktown Foundation is offering a variety of virtual learning experiences. Virtual Museum Tours use specially recorded videos of outdoor living-history areas so students can “walk through” re-creations of early America. At Jamestown Settlement, stops include three 1607 ships, a Powhatan town and English colonial fort to learn about the legacies of Jamestown and collision of cultures in 17th-century Virginia.
School groups can also virtually visit the American Revolution Museum at Yorktown to learn about critical battles of the Revolutionary War and its impact on 18th-century life. Students then participate in a 20-minute live facilitated discussion with museum educators.
Students can also participate in Exploring the Past: a series of inquiry-based programs where classrooms digitally join a Foundation educator using virtual learning platforms like WebEx. Options include “Trending Toward Revolution” (which contextualizes the buildup to war through contemporary social media) and “Early Virginia – People, Places and Things” (which challenges students to compare modern amenities to food, shelter and clothing of the past).
The Foundation also offers History Investigators, which are designed for hybrid learning arrangements. Students develop their critical thinking skills with individual modules before participating in a museum educator-led discussion.
Options include “CSI-John Smith” (where students use primary sources to determine if Smith’s famous gunpowder explosion was planned or an accident) and “Against Their Will” (which focuses on how the rich West Central African culture persevered in North America).
historyisfun.org/learn/virtual-learning
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