Educator Guides and Resources
Before You Come
As with other successful lesson plans, Museum visits should be structured to maximize students' learning experience. Use these handouts to help plan your field trip to the Museum.
Curriculum Preparation
Plan ahead to make sure that a field trip to the Museum will fit in with the curriculum students are studying in the classroom. The worksheets below will help to set learning goals, think through the TEKS alignments, and familiarize students with historical analysis through object-based learning.
Planning a Museum Field Trip
Artifact Analysis Lesson Plans
Puzzling Out the Past: Primary and Secondary Source Guide
Core exhibit chapters with social studies TEKS alignment for K-4
Core exhibit chapters with social studies TEKS alignment for 5-8
Logistical Preparation
Field trips take more than just curriculum planning. The document below will help with logistical coordination for your visit. Click here to learn more about field trip reservations and logistics.
Logistical information for TSHM Field Trips
Structured activities will enrich a student's understanding of the content and artifacts on display. Download these worksheets to help guide your students in the Museum exhibits.
Learn About History Through Primary Sources
Teaching students to engage directly with artifacts, documents, photographs, works of art and other objects helps them to put in context what they have learned in the classroom. Use these worksheets anywhere in the Museum to help guide students as they examine and analyze the primary sources on display.
Artifact Search (targets K-3)
Puzzling Out the Past: Gathering Evidence Worksheet (targets 4-12)
Museum Lobby
Immediately inside the doors, students can start to explore the history of Texas and learn the importance of a detailed examination of artifacts by investigating the terrazzo mural in the Rotunda floor.
30 Second Search - Rotunda Mural Activity
Core Exhibits
The core exhibits consist of three floors of displayed artifacts that cover Texas history from the earliest American Indians up to the space age. To learn more about the core exhibits, click here. The content of the core exhibits is divided into "chapters" of the Story of Texas that explore different eras and events.
Core exhibit chapters with social studies TEKS alignment for K-4
Core exhibit chapters with social studies TEKS alignment for 5-8
The Story of Texas Educator Guide
The Story of Texas Educator Guide is intended to lead teachers and students through three stages of a Museum experience: 1) a pre-visit introduction; 2) lesson plans and guided activities at the Museum; and 3) opportunities to extend learning in the classroom.
The Museum will launch the complete guide this spring.
Help us test the first section of the guide which covers the Second Floor: Building the Lone Star Identity. Your comments will help us shape the final and complete version of The Story of Texas Educator Guide, along with any additional supplemental materials and programs.
The Story of Texas Educator Guide - Second Floor
First Floor
On the first floor, students investigate the many cultures that have made Texas their home from the native peoples of Texas to early European explorers and settlers from across the globe in Encounters on the Land.
First Floor Exploration Cards
Gallery Hunt - First Floor
The French Shipwreck La Belle
Second Floor
On the second floor, students explore the story of how Texas became an independent nation and defined itself for the world in Building the Lone Star Identity.
Second Floor Exploration Guide
Gallery Hunt - Second Floor
Third Floor
On the third floor students discover how Texans have persevered on the land and how they approached everything from drilling oil to redefining world technology in Creating Opportunity.
Coming Soon
Special Exhibitions
Current and past special exhibits offer a focused examination of different parts of Texas life, culture, and heritage. The lesson plans and activities below can be used in conjunction with a Museum visit or after the exhibit has closed as supplementary activities to classroom curriculum.
The Current Special Exhibit
Texas High School Football: More than the Game
Texas high school football is more than a game. It is the bond that holds together communities, the local pride in past victories and legendary players. It's also marching bands, drill treams, pep rallies, mascots, cheerleaders, twirlers, booster clubs, fans and fanatics - all part of a larger story about ourselves as Texans.
Click here to learn more about this special exhibition.
Past Special Exhibition Educator Guides
Tango-Alpha-Charlie: Texas Aviation Celebration
The history of aviation in Texas is the story of industry innovation, record-setting achievements, gravity-defying feats and the soaring human spirit. The Tango-Alpha-Charlie: Texas Aviation Celebration Educator Guide provides lesson plans and activities that tell the story of Texas aviation past, present, and future. This TEKS and STEM aligned guide is a wonderful tool to combine the dynamic achievements of Texas aviators, designers, manufacturers, and services into your history and science curriculum.
Tango-Alpha-Charlie: Texas Aviation Celebration Educator Guide (27mg file)
For slower connections, download the guide in sections:
TAC Educator Guide - Part 1
TAC Educator Guide - Part 2
TAC Educator Guide - Part 3
TAC Educator Guide - Part 4
Student Flight Log Book
About the Student Flight Log Book
Texas Treasure: Inside Our Governor's Mansion
The enduring legacy of the Governor's Mansion is the juxtaposition of public and private stories. The below TEKS aligned lesson plans will broaden student understanding of the importance of preserving historic buildings by identifying places that matter to them and discussing personal reasons for preserving their own homes.
My Home Has History Lesson Plan
My Home Has History Worksheet
Architective Lesson Plan
Architective Worksheet
Forgotten Gateway: Coming to America Through Galveston Island
Forgotten Gateway: Coming to America Through Galveston Island explores the story of Galveston as one of America's top ten transoceanic ports of entry into Texas and the U.S. from the 19th and early 20th centuries through the lens of individual immigration stories. The Museum has created the Forgotten Gateway Guide for Educators & Communities to serve as an ongoing classroom resource for teachers with 21 lesson plans, activity pages, content glossaries and resource lists. This guide also contains community activity plans on performing oral histories and engaging local audiences in dialogues about their own immigrant histories, and guidelines on how to conduct programs with contemporary immigrants.
Forgotten Gateway: Coming to America Through Galveston Island Educator Guide
More information about this traveling exhibit can be found here.
Click here to learn more about past special exhibitions.
Movies
Guides for Films Showing at the Texas Spirit Theater:
Wild Texas Weather Educator Guide
Featuring historic and modern footage, Wild Texas Weather takes the viewer on a 22-minute tumultuous journey through some of the planet's most unpredictable—and downright wicked—weather conditions, including hurricanes, thunderstorms, droughts, and flash floods.
Click here to learn more about the film.
Guides for Films Showing at the IMAX® Theatre:
Texas: The Big Picture Education Center
The Texas: The Big Picture Educator Guide and Resources connect the Museum's landmark film about Texas to stories and artifacts within all three floors of Exhibits.
Click here to learn more about the film.
Tornado Alley Educator Guide
This heart-pounding science adventure follows Storm Chasers star Sean Casey and the researchers of VORTEX 2, the most ambitious effort ever made to understand the origins and evolution of tornadoes.
Click here to learn more about the film.
Ocean Wonderland 3D
Discover the vast bio-diversity and the crucial role played by coral reefs within the marine ecosystem. This film and guide will help students explore the magical and beautiful, yet endangered and fragile world of reefs, from Australia’s Great Barrier Reef to the Bahamas.
Click here to learn more about the film.
After You Leave
Review your visit with students after you get back to school. Post-visit activities can help build connections between what your students have been studying in the classroom and what they saw at the Museum. Use any of the above Educator Guides and worksheets for in-classroom lesson plans.
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