OMAHA, Neb. (KMTV) — The Durham Museum is physically closed right now, but they're doing their best to keep kids engaged in history lessons. They’re offering free virtual field trips geared towards elementary school students live on Zoom.
“Our first goal was certainly the content,” said Abby Jung, the Director of Education Services at The Durham Museum. “Teaching kids history, engaging kids in history, but what it quickly developed into which has been cool for us to see is the way kids interact with each other so they can have their video on.”
For most of the class the students are muted, but they have a chance to interact with each other before it begins and ask live questions at the end.
The field trips take students to places like the soda fountain and historic school room.
“We feel really lucky to be able to do something and to still be able to responsibly come to the museum and be able to do these programs,” Jung said.
To make sure they're safe while teaching these classes, the Durham is closed to the public and operating with minimal staff.
“Hopefully they leave with something,” Jung said. “But if it’s just a positive experience in this time we know is really stressful for kids then that’s great too.”
Classes are free but require registration for the Zoom log in credentials.
If you can’t make it at 10:00 a.m., you can view the field trips anytime in the virtual field trip archive.