Kentucky Derby Museum [KY]

Description

The Kentucky Derby Museums presents the significance and history of Thoroughbred racing; Churchill Downs; and the Kentucky Derby, a world-renowned annual horse race. The grounds include the graves of several favorite Derby horses—Carry Back, Swaps, Brokers Tip, and Sunny's Halo. Permanent exhibits address Kentucky Derby hats; races from 1918 to present day; the jockey stance; winning horses, owners, and trainers; jockey and stable life; handicapping; and African Americans in Thoroughbred racing.

The museum offers interactive and traditional exhibits, films, trivia tests, guided walking tours of Churchill Downs, barn and backside van tours, behind the scenes tours, legends and lore tours, student tours, curriculum-based programs, curriculum-based outreach programs, hands-on activities, scavenger hunts, summer camps, and a cafe. Social studies program topics range from economics to urbanization. The website offers a suggested reading list for students and relevant vocabulary.

North Carolina Sports Hall of Fame [NC]

Description

The North Carolina Sports Hall of Fame honors past and present North Carolina residents who either excelled within sports or greatly impacted today's world of sportsmanship. The hall of fame operates a museum of sport history. Artifacts on display include equipment and uniforms used by prominent athletes.

The museum offers exhibits and guided tours. Wheelchairs are available for use on site.

Stately Oaks Plantation [GA]

Description

The Stately Oaks Plantation bills itself as the inspiration for Margaret Mitchell's classic Gone with the Wind and it’s easy to see why. This 19th century Southern plantation home is complete with costumed interpreters, a country store, and Civil War artifacts.

Guided or MP3 tours are available for groups as well as educational tours especially for students. Educational program topics include Native Americans and the Civil War.

Mount Vernon Hotel Museum and Garden [NY]

Description

Visitors to the Museum can step back in time and take a guided tour through the hotel's eight fully furnished period rooms. Constructed in 1799 as a carriage house and converted into a hotel in 1826, the Museum transports the visitor back to the Mount Vernon Hotel, a country escape for New Yorkers living in the crowded city at the southern tip of Manhattan.

The museum offers tours, educational programs, and occasional recreational and educational events.

Petit Jean State Park [AR]

Description

Petit Jean features CCC/Rustic Style architecture that endures as a legacy to the craftsmanship and conservation achievements of the Civilian Conservation Corps. The park includes three National Historic Districts and contains more than 80 buildings, trails, and bridges. The most prominent architectural structure, Mather Lodge, stretches along the bluff of scenic Cedar Creek Canyon. The bluffs, waterfalls, and vistas of Petit Jean Mountain inspired the creation of Arkansas's first state park, and along with it Arkansas's state park system.

The site offers occasional recreational and educational events.

Coopersville Area Historical Society and Museum [MI]

Description

The Coopersville Area Historical Society seeks to preserve and share the history of Coopersville, MI. To this end, the society operates a museum of local history. The museum is housed within two structures, one of which is an early 20th-century railway depot. Exhibit topics include sawmills, settler lifestyles, rock music, logging, and business. Period settings include an early 20th-century school room and an 1880s drugstore. The museum contains a memorial to rock and roll singer Del Shannon (1934-1990).

The museum offers exhibits, period rooms, and group tours. Reservations are required for group tours.

Colonial Williamsburg [VA]

Description

Colonial Williamsburg is the world's single largest living history museum. It consists of the reconstructed 18th-century British outpost of Williamsburg, VA. Through costumed interpreters and structures furnished to period, the museum shares the story of America and its people—Native American, African American, Caucasian, enslaved, indentured, and free—circa 1699 through 1780. The historic area includes political and residential sites, trade skill settings, a plantation, gardens, and animal breeds of circa 200 years ago. Museums on site include the DeWitt Wallace Decorative Arts Museum and the Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Folk Art Museum.

The site offers exhibits, period rooms, living history interpreters, demonstrations, walking tours, dramatic performances, military exercises, fife and drum parades, ghost walks, mock witch trials, films, lectures, music programs, reenactments, a teacher institute in early American history, children's activities, curriculum-based tours for students, museum tours, conferences, forums, workshops, concession stands, and several dining locations with period-inspired food. The website offers audio tours, a virtual tour, virtual exhibits, information on historical structures and people, information on aspects of daily life, recipes, electronic field trips, lesson plans, teaching resources for purchase, slide shows, videos, audio clips, a daily vocabulary feature, podcasts, blogs, activities and games, and journal excerpts

National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum [NY]

Description

The National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum honors Major League and Negro League players, umpires, managers, and executives who have excelled within the sport of baseball. The museum focuses on the evolution of baseball as a U.S. sport and the ways in which the game has impacted the greater national culture. Exhibits include inductee plaques, artifacts related to the inductees, changes in the sport over time, Babe Ruth, women's connection to baseball, no-hitters, African Americans and baseball, baseball in the Caribbean Basin, youth league champions, baseball cards, recent events, baseball in film, sports journalism, ballparks and ballpark music, current records, and World Series moments of note. Collection highlights include a ticket booth from Yankee Stadium. The museum's research library claims more than 2,600,000 documents.

The museum offers a 13-minute introductory multimedia presentation, exhibits, curriculum-based educational programs, distance learning opportunities for students, summer educational programs, education ambassadors, teacher workshops, children's overnight programs, Scout programs, and research library access. Appointments, made at least one week in advance, are encouraged for library use. Student educational program topics include women's history, industrial technology, fine art, labor history, cultural diversity, economics, civil rights, and popular culture, among other options. The website offers online exhibits, thematic education units, electronic fieldtrips, and podcasts.

John Jay Homestead State Historic Site [NY]

Description

The John Jay Homestead State Historic Site maintains the 1801 home of Founding Father John Jay who served as the first Chief Justice of the Supreme court and co-authored the Treaty of Paris, among his many other accomplishments. The home is interpreted as an 1820's country home with 12 or its 24 rooms decorated and open to the public for tours.

Specialized tours and education programs are available by appointment. School groups may also tour the 1820's schoolhouse and the 1830s barn as wells as the formal gardens on the property.

Willard House and Clock Museum [MA]

Description

The Willard House and Clock Museum is housed in the original 1718 home of clockmaker Joseph Willard. Willard's descendents went on to become some of America's most famous clockmakers and the museum houses many original creations of the family.

Upon making reservations, groups may visit the museum and tour for approx. an hour for a small fee.