Middle and High School Students
Discover the historical context. Create the future.
Engage and empower your students with these field trip options. Take advantage of our free in-gallery activities and on-site student worksheets, such as our Take a Closer Look (PDF) chaperone guide or Artifact Analysis (PDF) student activity designed for use in any gallery!
Explore the City on Fire: Chicago 1871 exhibition with our gallery guide (English PDF; PDF en español).
Find more On-Site Student Worksheets!
IDEA Stations
Engage with history at our new IDEA stations, where students actively analyze and interpret the past. Facilitated by trained staff and volunteers, these 20-minute hands-on experiences work best with a group size of about ten students.
Designing for Change: Chicago Protest Art of the 1960s–70s
Recommended for middle and high school students, visit this exhibition to learn how Chicago activists in the 1960s and ’70s used design to create powerful imagery to amplify their visions for social change. Students will see more than 100 posters, fliers, signs, and more from the era, expressing often radical ideas about race, war, gender equality, and sexuality that challenged mainstream culture of the time.
Enhanced Student Field Trip | Designing for Change
Wednesday, March 5, 10:30 a.m.–12:30 p.m.
Designed for students in grades 7–12, this enhanced experience explores Designing for Change: Chicago Protest Art of the 1960s–70s. Students will have the opportunity to listen to a panel discussion moderated by CHM director of education, Erica Griffin-Fabicon, with contemporary artivists (artist + activist) discussing their work and how students can become artivists and activists themselves. Students will then visit Designing for Change and explore the work of past artivists. An artmaking activity invites students to create their own protest art to reflect an issue or issues they care about!
Free; advance reservations required. Select “yes” to the enhanced field trip option when you sign up for your field trip using our reservation form.
Sign Up Here
Facing Freedom Student Workshop
On-site workshops are currently suspended, but Facing Freedom virtual workshops are available. The Facing Freedom in America exhibition is also available for on-site self-guided visits and our “Walk into the Past” gallery activity (PDF) can support your visit.
Recommended for grades 7 to 12
75-minute experience per class. Cost: $5 per student.
Based on Facing Freedom in America, this workshop encourages critical thought about freedom and issues of social justice in American history, particularly in the areas of workers’ rights, armed conflict, public protest, and race and citizenship. Students become historians as they analyze and discuss objects and then add their own voices to the exhibition—curating a display case filled with their selected artifacts and handwritten interpretive text.
Advance reservations required. This workshop is available Monday through Friday and can accommodate ten to sixty-five students per day.
Conversation Starters
Jazz Talk – Grades 6 to 12
Enrich your visit to Chicago: Crossroads of America with a role-play activity! Take a seat in the Jazz and Blues Club and use slang cards to have a Roaring Twenties–style conversation. Free and available on a first-come, first-served basis.
