Friday was a very crazy day: I had the Duke kids coming in the afternoon, and my first student lab in the morning. The lab went great too! For those of you who are not familiar with it, it is a two hour workshop that students from 5th grade through 12the grade come in to do some in-depth analysis and digging about the Constitution and how it affects their everyday lives. They get a mission from Bob, the White House press secretary who needs information for a campaign on the Constitution in Action. The kids then spent most of their time looking through documents housed at the Archives to find ways that different parts of the Constitution are used everyday. They also look at how certain ideas from the Constitution (like representative government, checks and balances, enumerated powers) are written into the Constitution and then used in these documents. Once they choose one that fits their guidelines best, they create a script and send a message back to Bob about the Constitution in Action, which becomes a part of the press conference material he uses in the end. In addition to all of this, the students learn a little bit about how the National Archives works, and what sorts of research they can do here. Their environment is set up like the reading room in the Archives is, and some of the students even get to don lab coats and go back into a mock-stack area to retrieve the records they will be using. They trip ends then with a quick visit to the Rotunda, where they students get to see the actual documents they have spent all this time working with. It's really a neat experience for all of them, and I really enjoyed helping the students find the right records and then figuring out how they apply. Here is the website if you want more information at all: http://archives.gov/nae/visit/learning-center/learning-center-lab.html
My afternoon then was completely dedicated to the Duke group. Just before they showed up, Missy and I ran into a huge problem with one of the records we were going to use: the VHS tape would not work. Luckily I thought quickly on my feet and looked it up on YouTube, where it was! We ended up using it as a teaching moment; there are many social media places on the internet that can be used for historical research!
The group came right on time, (which is a feat around here) and spent a lot of time in the rotunda learning about the Archives and the documents we have here. I was so relieved that they liked this historical aspects of the Archives; I was worried that they would think it's boring! We then took a stop into the Public Vaults and then it was off to the ReSource Room. The Archivist, David Ferraro (yes , the actual one!) stopped in to introduce himself and thank Missy and I for the work we have done on this project. By this point we were running a bit short on time, so we got right into the stations that we had spent so much time working on. In the end, we only got through two stations, and even then the students seemed liked they felt a little rushed. They did enjoy them though and got the point that there are many scientific resource here, not just historical ones. Their teachers were very appreciative too of all we had done to accommodate them, and the students were very polite and thankful for the program we had made for them. Even my boss was impressed with all the work I had put into all of this, including the last minute technology glitch. It was a great day. :)
Yesterday I spent a lot of time outside, since it was fantastic out! (As I write this, it's 50 and sunny out-there is even patches of green grass!) I went to the Navy Memorial for a volunteer meeting for the DC International Film Festival that's coming up. Once that was over, I went down to the shops at Georgetown with a few friends for some vintage clothing shopping. We only found one shop, but we went into some crazy expensive stores! I also found Georgetown Cupcake, which is supposed to be fantastic and has a show coming up on TLC.
Next week is looking like more research time for me, as well as more labs. As we get into the tourist season (which starts in just a few weeks) the Archives is getting ready for the thousands of people that will walk into their doors to see their government's most basic workings. Should be interesting...
This is one of the letters the students look at while in the lab. It's a pretty funny presidential letter actually!
Georgetown Cupcakes!
Some of the shops at Georgetown
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