Connect Your Students With History
Plan a field trip to the Los Alamos History Museum or let us bring the museum to you with a classroom outreach lesson. Our programs for classes are tailored to the grade level of your students and address core social studies learning standards.
For for more information or to schedule a program, contact the museum educator at educator@losalamoshistory.org or 505-695-5251.
For for more information or to schedule a program, contact the museum educator at educator@losalamoshistory.org or 505-695-5251.
Scavenger Hunts
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Engage your students with hands-on history while reducing their screen fatigue by setting them on a thematic scavenger hunt from the History Museum. The outdoor hunts focus on a specific era of our local history and support students in making connections between the past and the present.
Elementary school students can follow the scavenger hunts with their family, and middle and high school students can explore the hunts on their own. We also offer a smartphone-based virtual Cold War tour for high school students. Email educator@losalamoshistory.org to learn more. Teacher guides provide you with discussion questions for your class before and after the hunt, as well as an answer key. |
Photo by Vint Miller / Los Alamos County.
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Virtual Field Trips
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Although in-person classroom visits and large field trips are paused for the moment, we can connect with you and your students where you are with a virtual field trip.
Your class can visit the Romero Cabin or Fuller Lodge over video chat, with the museum educator live on site to answer questions and point out the artifacts your students find most interesting. A virtual trip to the Romero Cabin explores homesteading at the beginning of the 20th century. A virtual trip to Fuller Lodge brings your students back to the days of the Los Alamos Ranch School 100 years ago. Virtual field trips are 30 minutes long and can be offered whether your students are in class in their homes or together in the classroom. These trips are free and are available to classes in or out of Los Alamos County. Email educator@losalamoshistory.org to learn more and to schedule a virtual field trip. Virtual field trips are supported in part by the National Endowment for the Humanities and the New Mexico Humanities Council. |
Classroom Reading
The Secret Project Notebook
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In this book, author Carolyn Reeder tells the story of Fritz, a seventh grader who arrives in Los Alamos during the Manhattan Project and quickly starts trying to uncover its secrets while making new friends and learning how to deal with bullies. This work of historical fiction allows students to learn some of the real-life history of Los Alamos and to gain an appreciation for what life was like for kids living here during the Manhattan Project.
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We have a classroom lesson and a guided walking tour ideal for 3rd–5th grade classes. The museum educator can bring an hour-long lesson to your classroom. Students can then discuss what they learned from the book and pretend they are living in Los Alamos during the Manhattan Project by writing a letter to a friend back home (that will have to go through the censors!). This lesson works best if your class is most of the way through or has finished the book. After the students have finished reading the The Secret Project Notebook, the class can take an hour-long guided tour where they can connect events from the book and history with real locations in downtown Los Alamos.
The Green Glass Sea
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historical fiction
by Ellen Klages Viking, New York, 2006 It’s 1943, and eleven-year-old Dewey Kerrigan is en route to New Mexico to live with her mathematician father. Soon she arrives at a town that, officially, doesn’t exist. It is called Los Alamos, and it is abuzz with activity, as scientists and mathematicians from all over America and Europe work on the biggest secret of all–“the gadget.” None of them–not J. Robert Oppenheimer, the director of the Manhattan Project; not the mathematicians and scientists; and least of all, Dewey–know how much “the gadget” is about to change their lives. |
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Author's Official Page: Learn more about the author, Ellen Klages.
Educator’s Guide to the Green Glass Sea tied to Common Core Standards by Penguin’s Classroom Classics
