Educator-led Programs
To support local teachers navigating these changing times, the Berkshire Museum’s proven, educator-led programs are now available on-site at the museum and online in virtual classrooms.
Now Available Online and In-Person!
Register your class for a private, interactive presentation of any of our educational programs at a set time and date, or bring a bus load of students to see us at the museum. Both formats are free for all teachers regardless of location, school, or grade.
Availability
Museum Visits: By reservation Monday through Friday
Virtual Visits: By reservation Monday through Friday, with starting times from 9:30 am
All virtual and in-person class visits require advance registration. Please click below or contact Joseph Mastronardi at JMastronardi@berkshiremuseum.org.
Living World
Amazing Reptiles
Encounter live turtles, snakes, and lizards. Observe each animal’s adaptations to experience how they sense and survive in the world around them.
Aquarium Explorations
Observe and study the unique traits, behaviors, and habitats of the aquatic life in the Aquarium. Strengthens observation, math, and design skills.
Mammal Adaptations
Discover how Berkshire mammals have adapted for survival. Just how much can you infer from a pelt, a skull, or teeth? Connect these traits to ecosystems and environments in our beloved Animals of the World in Miniature Room!
Metamorphosis
Explore the life cycles and survival strategies of butterflies and frogs. This program is recommended for students in preschool through grade 5.
Connect and Create
Make a Museum (Coming in 2024 – Book Now!)
Curate your own room of a museum, using imagery and 3-D printed replications to arrange, connect, and synthesize the museum’s eccentric collection. And, if you’re lucky, meet some of the museum’s eccentric staff!
Poetry of Art
Through guided observation, students strengthen their language arts and visual interpretation skills by creating verses inspired by artwork in the collection.
Portraits and Identity (Coming in 2024 – Book Now!)
Everything projects an identity, especially in a museum. Inspect portraits and objects from the museum’s collection, and then inspect yourself! Create a self-portrait, envisioning the world that the portrait inhabits and reflects.
Perceive and Process
Physics of Fun
Discover and use scientific principles like force, gravity, inertia, and friction through exploration and engineering challenges.
Rock On!
Become a geologist and discover the mysteries hidden deep within the earth through observation, games, and scientific testing.
The Science of Exploration
Learn of famous expeditions of the past and the ways they navigated. Can you leave behind an accurate map, using only a compass? For older groups, can you learn from the mistakes of the past to explore ethically?
History & Humanities
Ancient Adventures
Journey across the ancient world through the museum’s collection: Rome, Athens, Palmyra… Ipu! Religious beliefs, arts, language, technology, death rituals… it’s all there if you listen closely to what the objects are saying.
Mohicans Then and Now
Travel back in time to learn about the pillars of daily life for the indigenous peoples of the Berkshires, the Mohicans. Interact with museum objects and encounter the Mohican Trail of Tears that led to Wisconsin, where they live and thrive today.
We Shape History
People shape history in countless ways. Some as individuals, some as groups. Some have power, some fight against the powerful. Explore the museum’s galleries to uncover extraordinary stories and developments that affect our lives to this day.