1. Learning with Digital Objects
Discuss how you might incorporate one or more of the objects from the exhibition online into a lesson.
Find someone nearby and discuss your ideas for how you might incorporate one or more of the objects from the exhibition into a lesson.

2. Harris Learning Collection
· While digital objects make museum and library collections more accessible than ever before, it’s worth noting that having a real, tangible object is the best option.
· Here in the Chicago region you’re lucky to have access to the N. W. Harris Learning Collection - a lending library of over 1,500 different specimens and artifacts that you can check out and bring back to your classroom to enhance your lessons with object based learning.
· The collection includes both exhibit cases (or mini dioramas) and experience boxes, which contain touchable specimens and artifacts.
· All of the Museum’s main areas of study are represented within the collection: anthropology, botany, geology, and zoology.
· I’ve brought a box here with me today – Chinese Traditions. You can see that the box contains artifacts, object cards to describe each object, and an activity guide to get you started with ideas for how to use the objects in the box.
· If you’d like to learn more about the collection you can visit harris.fieldmuseu.org or talk to me after the conference.
Visit harris.fieldmusuem.org to learn more about the program and browse the catalog.

3. Oak Park Multicultural Collection
1,000 + artifacts from around the world, organized by continent
Books, movies, music, exploring world cultures and other markers of identity.
Visit oppl.org/multicultural to explore the catalog.

4. Intercultural Learning with Objects
Constructivist - long term skills - how can we prepare students, for example, to become anthropologists at The Field Museum?
Gary Feinman
<Culturally Relevant nature of objects> Objects can represent cultures without written language
Also help us connect to others whose language we don’t speak
Also help us come over language barriers within the classroom
<common Concerns, Different Responses Piece>
See differences in cultures, but also see what we have in common.

5. Inter-cultural Understandings Through Objects
Exploration : learning about new cultures across time and space
Identity - understand your own cultural lens - spatial & temporal
Empathy - building understanding in cultures own terms

6. Empathy in the China Hall Toolkit
Three Empathic Lenses:
Historical Empathy
Cultural Empathy
Social Empathy
· Along with the launch of the Cyrus Tang Hall of China, we also launched the China Educator Toolkit.
· This toolkit contains lessons and other multimedia resources in both English and Spanish for educators to use as they are teaching about the history and cultures of China.
· One of the unique aspects of the educator toolkit is that it employs three empathic lenses throughout the resources.
o Historic Empathy – understanding the perspective of peoples of the past
o Cultural Empathy – understanding the perspective of peoples of other cultures
o Social Empathy – understanding the perspectives of peers
· We’re going to take a closer look at one of the lessons from the toolkit – Outsiders Inside to find examples of this.
· In your folder you’ll find a copy of this lesson in both English and in Spanish.
· Pull out the lesson in the language of your choice, and read through it.
· As you’re reading look for examples of how historic, cultural, or social empathy might be employed.
· Next to those examples mark an “H” for historic empathy, “C” for cultural empathy, and an “S” for social empathy. Later I’ll ask you to turn and talk to a neighbor about the examples you found.

7. Empathic Lenses Historical Empathy Cultural Empathy Social Empathy
What examples did you find of the empathic lenses being employed in the lesson?
How else might you work to develop students’ capacities for historic, cultural, and social empathy in your classroom?
· Find a neighbor to discuss the examples of the empathic lenses in the lesson that you found.
· Discuss what other ways might you might be able to foster historic, cultural, or social empathy in your classroom.

8. Cultural Assets in Your School Community
What cultural assets exist in your school community?
What action step will you take to leverage those cultural assets for learning in your classroom?
Libraries & Museums - why we’re presenting together today
Given your context, school/community, what other assets might exist?
What action step can you take?

9. Questions?
Naomi Priddy Heidi Rouleau Oak Park Public Library The Field Museum