Center (a joint initiative of the Smithsonian and the National 

 Academy of Sciences), the curriculum enables children to 

 learn by doing experiments, as well as by reading texts and 

 listening to teachers. As one of the world's premier research 

 institutions, we are ideally suited to help students better 

 understand science by teaching them not only what we know 

 but also how we know it. The program, called Science and 

 Technology for Children, is used in more than 20 percent of 

 the nation's school districts, and similar curricula are now 

 being fashioned for grades 7 and 8. 



One of the pleasures of my position as Secretary is the 

 opportunity to visit schools and see some of these programs in 

 action. I can also keep in touch with students, though they 

 are somewhat younger than the Berkeley undergraduates I 

 once knew. Last year, I observed classes using the NSRC 

 science curriculum while I was visiting Anchorage, Alaska. It 

 was a delight to see fifth- and sixth-graders not only reading 

 about science but actually handling objects that had scientific 

 importance. This is a wonderful way to teach the scientific 

 method. The pupils hypothesized about the outcome, did the 

 steps, and saw the results. They learned as much when they 

 were wrong as when they were right. 



Another time, I was surrounded by a kinetic first-grade 

 group visiting the Hands On History Room at the National 

 Museum of American History. The objects here were not 

 scientific but historical, evoking the early nineteenth century, 

 and they were all piled into a big box. I was one of the adults 

 telling that excited group stories about the objects and 

 clothing. The excitement mounted when the children were 

 invited to try on the clothing; one great big red cape was 

 particularly popular. I know something important was 

 happening there: the stimulation of curiosity and the 

 glimmerings of a world beyond theit own experience. It was 

 one of the best times I have had at the Smithsonian. 



As I have come to know the range of educational activities 

 conceived by my colleagues in the museums, the research 

 institutes, and in our central Smithsonian Office of Education, I 

 continue to be impressed by the inventiveness of their strategies. 

 The National Portrait Gallery, for example, takes to classrooms 

 "The Trial of John Brown," in which costumed gallery staff play 

 the roles of judge, attorneys, and witnesses in a mock trial of the 

 nineteenth-century abolitionist while students serve as jury. The 

 National Postal Museum has put together an activity book in 

 which students create their own postage stamps and another 

 book that is a guide to building letter-writing relationships 

 across generations. 



Other materials among the 455 items listed in the latest 

 Smithsonian Resource Guide {or Teachers include such 

 imaginatively titled booklets as Birds over Troubled Forests, 

 from the Smithsonian Migratory Bird Center of the National 

 Zoo, and the Smithsonian Office of Education's Image and 

 Identity: Clothing and Adolescence in the ippos. which explores 

 the clues that clothing provides to understanding culture. 

 Studies indicate that skillfully done object-based education is 

 a successful means of engaging young people and teaching a 



variety of skills and subjects. If these techniques are to be 

 widely used in schools and museums, considerable resources 

 must be invested in the preparation and distribution of 

 materials and, most important, in teacher training. Teachers 

 who are confident they can use these new techniques find 

 object-based education an exciting way to enhance learning. 



The Smithsonian has been involved in a number of 

 activities to inform teachers and to offer relevant training, 

 especially in the Washington metropolitan area. Summer 

 seminars for teachers, conducted largely within Smithsonian 

 museums and research institutes, focus on how to use 

 museum collections in the teaching process. Similarly, 

 Smithsonian staff have worked with the National Faculty, a 

 nonprofit educational organization, in extensive teacher 

 training programs around the country that involve curators 

 from the Institution and local museums, as well as 

 distinguished university professors. 



The Smithsonian also brings thousands of Washington-area 

 teachers together at an annual Teachers' Night to see displays 

 and discuss materials and programs for local schools. As a way 

 to reach more educators, we have begun to use the Internet to 

 share curriculum ideas and lesson plans. By the year 2003, an 

 Education Resource Center in the Arts and Industries 

 Building will allow teachers to try out a variety of curriculum 

 kits and other materials on site. A virtual version will also be 

 available on the Smithsonian Education World Wide Web 

 site (http://educate.si.edu/). 



In these ways the Smithsonian can collaborate with all 

 schools interested in our approach to object-based and 

 research-linked education. But two schools in the District of 

 Columbia are taking the Smithsonian connection one step 

 further. In the fall of 1996, Robert Brent Elementary School 

 and Stuart-Hobson Middle School became Museum Magnet 

 Schools through a partnership forged between the District of 

 Columbia Public Schools and the Smithsonian Institution 

 under a grant from the U.S. Department of Education. The 

 Smithsonian Office of Education describes this partnership as 

 "a groundbreaking program for elementary and middle school 

 students allowing them to pursue real questions, becoming 

 both teacher and student, observer and curator." 



Using an interdisciplinary and thematic approach, students 

 in these schools collect, study, and interpret objects to learn 

 science, art, geography, history, and potentially a multitude of 

 other subjects. What strikes me as particularly remarkable 

 about this program is its core insight that students may learn 

 best when they have the opportunity to present their learning 

 to new audiences. In February 1997, the Washington Post 

 reported on a tour that Erica Webster, 14, of Stuart-Hobson 

 Middle School gave "a wide-eyed group of kindergartners" of 

 a Native American history exhibition she and her 

 eighth-grade classmates had developed. Erica's sure command 

 of the material came across as she sat with the younger 

 students in a 12-foot-tall tepee made of bed linens. 



Erica's principal, Yvonne Lewis, described the total 

 immersion of her eighth-graders in Native American culture. 



