Clark County Historical Museum gratefully acknowledges the help of our volunteer Education Committee in the preparation of our Materials for Teachers.

• Joan Dengerink – Education Committee Chair
• Pepper Kim – Legacy High School teacher
• David Barber – Social Studies Teacher, Vancouver SD
• Lisa Staley – Professor of Art History, Clark College
• Michael Heim – Retired Educator & Volunteer
• Judie Cole – Social Studies Teacher, Vancouver SD

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Artifact Detectives

In 2008, the Clark County Historical Museum, Vancouver, Wa., launched an initiative to pair two Clark County teachers with a professional archaeologist on a special project to develop classroom education materials and prototype educational kits for grade 4-12 students.

The project relates to southwest Washington’s regional history between 1870 and 1920 and features non-culturally sensitive and historic materials that were excavated during the construction of the Vancouver Convention Center and Hilton Hotel, which opened in 2005. Excavated items include china, buttons, toys and other examples of late 19th and early 20th century everyday life.

Special permission was granted by the Washington State Archaeologist, Rob Whitlam, to utilize a portion of the collection for educational purposes. A large part of the collection has been curated and is archived at the CCHM for future comparative research.

The teachers selected to work on the project were Janet Dondelinger, of Pioneer Elementary School in the Evergreen School District, and S. Tyler Morgan, of Camas High School in the Camas School District. Jessica Hale, of Applied Archaeological Research, Inc., Portland, was the project archaeologist. Susan M. G. Tissot, executive director of CCHM, was the project director.

The project was funded by a $10,000 Certified Local Government grant from the Washington Department of Archaeology and Historic Preservation. The museum completed the project working in partnership with Clark County and local schools. The education materials were tested in the classroom. The Evergreen School District’s YES TV documented archaeologist Jessica Hale’s visit to Janet Dondelinger’s 4th grade classroom. Click here to see the footage on YouTube.

Artifact Detectives Education Materials

These education materials are posted here so that any educator can utilize them in their classrooms. Teachers are encouraged to use the materials as is or to modify them to fit the needs of their individual classrooms.
To learn more about the Artifact Detectives education kits and/or to find out how your classroom can access them, contact the museum at info@cchmuseum.org.

• Janet Dondelinger’s 4th grade level education materials
• S. Tyler Morgan’s High School level education materials
• Ed Kit Review

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Teaching Materials from Past Programs and Exhibits

Please click here for a Scavenger Hunt for the Boomer! exhibit. Completing the Scavenger Hunt can enrich your tour of the exhibit and challenge you to find all the important themes and details from Boomer! An answer key is included.

David Thompson Teacher Resource Packet

The Resource Packet complements the Mapmaker’s Eye exhibit which commemorates the bicentennial of fur agent and cartographer David Thompson’s explorations in the Northwest between 1807 and 1812. The exhibit will be at Clark County Historical Museum for a limited engagement through June 6. Thompson, the counterpart of America’s Lewis and Clark, was an English-Canadian fur trader who worked for the Hudson Bay Company in Manitoba, Canada, before joining its competitor, the Northwest Company. Thompson was the first European to navigate the full length of the Columbia River. The maps he made of the Columbia River basin east of the Cascade Mountains were of such high quality and detail that they were used well into the mid-20th century.

The 12 lesson plans in this packet, published by the Northwest Museum of Arts & Culture, were designed by teachers that attended a 2005 summer institute, Traveling in the Footsteps of David Thompson. Please click here to view/download the resource packet. (See p. 2 of the Packet for a list of lessons by title.)

Materials from 2007 Summer Workshop for Teachers

The Clark County Historical Museum’s summer workshop provided participating teachers the opportunity to spend time with archaeologists and other experts, examine artifacts, learn more about local history and classroom applications, as well as find out what is really inside a museum.

Workshop activities facilitated teachers’ preparation of engaging social studies materials and activities for use in their classrooms and in meeting the state’s Classroom-Based Assessment (CBA) requirements. Districts will be required to report CBA results to OSPI by school year 2008-2009.

Grant funding for the summer workshop was generously provided by Clark County’s 2007 Historical Promotion Grants program. A total of 15 teachers from throughout Clark County’s school Districts were selected competitively and participated in five days of workshops.

Under state law, OSPI is expecting one CBA to be performed at every grade level (3-12) every year. The exact format and information to be reported has not yet been decided. CBAs, essentially, take the place of a Social Studies “WASL.” CBAs on the OSPI website were developed by Washington teachers. OSPI’s website for CBAs includes directions and rubrics, sample graphic organizers, and scored sample papers.

It might be noted that most of the curriculum units created by the museum’s workshop participants tap into the state’s “Dig Deep: Analyze Artifacts & Sources” CBA for history at the elementary level and for history and geography at middle and high school levels.
Funding for this program provided by Clark County’s 2007 Historical Promotion Grants (HPG) program.

Teacher Participants

Unit Plans