The New Mexico State University Museum



MUSEUM SCHOOL OUTREACH KITS

For elementary and middle schoolteachers, the NMSU Museum provides "Museum-in-a-Bag" Learning Kits developed by our Museum Educator Gaea McGahee and Museum volunteers who design, fabricate, and circulate the Museum-in-a-Bag kits to local teachers to supplement their curriculum. Currently these kits focus on Minerals and Rocks, Indians of the Southwest and the historic Camino Real. Each kit contains specimens or artifacts, informational books, posters or charts for students and a teacher's packet with background information and numerous learning activity suggestions.

Educational Outreach volunteers Jack Cabrera and Ann Mahar have been working hard with Museum Educator Gaea McGahee on our newest kit titled "El Camino Real, New Mexico's Royal Road". This unit currently consists of 5 kits that are available to teachers for up to six weeks, to supplement their history and social studies classes.

MINERALS AND ROCKS KIT
Includes 5 student bags per classroom and is available for 3 to 6 weeks. Each bag contains specimens of principal minerals and rocks, simple tools (magnet, magnifying lens, streak tile, and glass plate) with which to test them. Also included are children's books, illustrative charts, and a teacher's packet with background information and numerous activities, puzzles, and games. Answers to worksheets and activities are provided.

INDIANS OF THE SOUTHWEST KIT
Includes 5 student bags per classroom and is available for 3 to 6 weeks. Each kit contains books on ancient and present Indian cultures (Anasazi, Hohokam, Mimbres, Mogollon, Dine, Inde, Hopi, etc.), artifacts and tools used by the Indians, posters illustrating pottery and native plants used for dyes, potsherds for sorting and matching activities, and a teacher's packet with background information and multiple learning experiences for children. Answers to worksheets and activities are provided.

EL CAMINO REAL, NEW MEXICO’S ROYAL ROAD
This kit  provides teachers with literature, activities, and objects that facilitate the creation of an engaging learning environment in the classroom. Teachers receive books, articles, worksheets, and activity cards. Students have access to age appropriate readings, maps, and examples of items that were traded up-and-down the Camino Real during its use. Jack, Ann, and Gaea have developed activities that highlight important events and conditions once experienced along the trail.  More that anything else, we hope the Camino Real unit will create in students a sense of connection with the past along with an understanding and appreciation of the multicultural setting in which they find themselves today.  For further information, please call 646-3739.
                 
          
Camino Real Literature                                          Historic and pre-historic trade goods       Parrot feathers, shells, and copper bells 

     
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