Recent Projects

Grant Wood's
Studio

Grout Museum
District Excursion

Camp Silos

Cedar Rapids
History Center
Excursion

University of
Wisconsin-Stout

Grout Museum District Excursion
http://campsilos.org/excursions/grout/
Upon entering this interactive educational website, students in grades 4-8 are transformed into historians as they explore primary source photographs, letters and artifacts related to the themes of immigration and agriculture-based industrialization in the heartland.

Grant Wood's Studio
http://www.grantwoodstudio.org/
This project was designed to support the Cedar Rapids Museum of Arts' efforts to restore American Realist Grant Wood's Studio. The website showcases the artist's historic studio in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, known as "5 Turner Alley," where he lived and worked from 1924 to 1935. Wood converted the loft of this turn-of-the-century carriage house where he created some of his most famous paintings, including American Gothic in 1930.

CampSilos
http://www.campsilos.org
Silos & Smokestacks National Heritage Area

CampSilos is an educational web site focusing on the development of American agriculture. Targeting students in grades 4-8, the site provides online educational material related to the natural prairie, pioneer farm life, early agricultural technology, the story of corn from its early Indian origins to the present, and 21st century technological advances including applications of GPS and biotechnology.

Activities and lesson plans feature virtual field trips, mystery photos, group games, problem-based learning activities, primary source materials, scavenger hunts and history detective research using online resources and links to national standards. Students can even watch the birth of baby pigs!

 

CampSilos Excursions
http://www.campsilos.org/excursions
Silos & Smokestacks National Heritage Area

CampSilos Excursions offers learning materials through virtual field trips to Iowa’s historic and cultural resources in the Silos & Smokestacks National Heritage Area. Students become museum curators and explore historic photographs, letters, and artifacts depicting pioneer farm life and the development of agriculture. Web-based research activities and pre- and post-field trip lesson plans are linked to national standards in the areas of language arts, social studies and history.