Learning

Historian For a Day: The Lucy Higgs Nichols Story

Learn about the Underground Railroad and the story of Lucy Higgs Nichols, a Civil War nurse who escaped enslavement and settled in New Albany! This program is a 1.5-hour experience designed for 3rd-5th graders that combines recorded videos (including an art activity video that uses easy at-home materials) with a one-hour live, synchronous, interactive storytelling session with our museum educator. Schedule this experience for your classrooms of up to 50 students at a time anytime during the school year by going to THIS PAGE or by contacting us directly at jleidner@carnegiecenter.org.

*Note: this program is free for Floyd County, IN classrooms and non-profit organizations. Fees per classroom may apply for schools outside of Floyd County.

Reason to Remember: A Virtual New Albany Fieldtrip

A Reason to Remember: A Virtual New Albany Field trip is a 35-minute educational film about New Albany, Indiana, that visits four local historic sites in addition to the Carnegie Center: the Town Clock Church, Culbertson Mansion, Scribner House, and Division Street School. This film was produced in 2021 by the Carnegie Center with Uproar Films as a response to the cancellation of 3rd and 4th grade field trips to these local sites due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Download our A Reason to Remember Educators Guide HERE.

Ordinary People, Extraordinary Courage: The Men and Women of the Underground Railroad Short Film

An introduction to the history of the Underground Railroad in Southern Indiana, this 15-minute educational film is an edited version of the 1 hour film Ordinary People, Extraordinary Courage: The Men and Women of the Underground Railroad, produced by the Carnegie Center for Art and History. This film is presented to 3rd-5th graders as a part of our educational program Historian For a Day: The Lucy Higgs Nichols Story.

FIVE corresponding age-appropriate lessons plans are available to teachers as free downloadable PDFs:

Teacher Resource Guides

The Carnegie’s Museum Educators have put together Teacher Resource Guides for all of our exhibits. Each guide has exhibit information, additional resources, and suggested activities related to the content of the exhibit. These guides can serve as companion pieces to your class visits!

Make Art with Us From Home

We love posting videos to our YouTube channel of activities you can do at home! We’ll give you the supply list and some guidance on how to create your masterpiece, and the rest is up to you! Check out this video (pictured above) of Miss Tee explaining how to make a “pictorial handscape,” along with a lesson on mapmaking! You can also check out these art-and-history-inspired downloadable activities for all ages:

- DIY Egg Tempera Paint (Instructions for using eggs and gel food coloring to make paint!) + a follow-along VIDEO!
- How to Make a Hairy Monster (Out of yarn and pipe cleaners!)
- DIY Scratch Art. (Using tempera paint and crayons!)
- Colored Pencil Ice Cream Cone (A color-mixing activity)
- Colored Pencil Skin Tones Activity (A color-mixing activity for teens)
- Cardboard Bouquet (Turn your trash into flowers with this project!)
- Make a Flip Book out of an 1878 Film of a Horse Running
- Things to Do With Polymer Clay / Sculpey
- Hair and Identity (for teens) (Photo collage idea)
- Fossil Plaster Art Project (Cast wet plaster into a simple sand mold!)

Hear from Artists and Experts

Visit the Floyd County Library Staff Blog, with a wide variety of topics including exciting conservation news, self-guided walking tour ideas, and much more! You can also check out the recordings of our community lecture series, Lunch & Learn and watch interviews with artists and curators from past exhibitions and programs at the Carnegie Center on our YouTube page.

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Need help figuring out how to use any of this stuff? Visit the Library’s Niche Academy site for tutorials on how to use Hoopla, Libby, Flipster, Mango Languages, and more.