School Programs

History comes alive for students with our interactive school programs placed at different stops within the exhibitions at the Maryland Center for History and Culture. Students gain essential social studies skills by engaging with the MCHC collections through primary source inquiry and activities.

These programs relate to The Jim Henson Exhibition: Imagination Unlimited and are available on Tuesdays and Wednesdays through December 2023.

Use of our lunchroom is available upon request for any program for no additional cost. This typically adds 30 minutes to the program duration.

Centered around a children’s book with familiar characters and social and emotional learning, we will read, move, and craft together.

Cost: $10 per student for non-Title I educational organizations / $8 per student for Title I educational organizations
Capacity: 7-36 students
Length: 1.5 hours

Inspired by Jim Henson’s use of puppets to tell stories, students will design their own puppets, as well as write, direct, and perform their own short plays.

Cost: $10 per student for non-Title I educational organizations / $8 per student for Title I educational organizations
Capacity: 10-45 students
Length: 2 hours

These programs relate to our collections and are available on Wednesdays and Fridays during the school year.

Use of our lunchroom is available upon request for any program for no additional cost. This typically adds 30 minutes to the program duration.

Learn what life was like in Maryland long ago. Students are introduced to how jobs, homes, schools, and communities have changed in the state’s history.

Cost: $5 per student
Capacity: 10-60 students
Length: 1.5 hours

Encounter the stories and voices from the African American Civil Rights Movement as it manifested in Maryland. Students encounter oral histories and other primary sources to learn about local 20th- and 21st-century civil rights activism in the Passion & Purpose exhibition and the Student Research Center for History.

Cost: $5 per student
Capacity: 10-45 students
Length: 1.5 hours

Our Colonial Maryland program is currently under redevelopment to align better with new state social studies standards for upper elementary grades. We intend to offer a new version in Spring 2024.

Enhance your students’ onsite experience and get hands-on with history. Add-on activities are an additional 30-60 minutes, depending on the number of students, and incur an additional per student material cost. The add-on souvenir adds no additional time to the field trip experience and has an additional per student cost.

Students explore the skill of writing a letter using a quill and ink.

Using beeswax, students make their own hand-dipped candles to take home.

Students interact with primary sources from the MCHC collection while learning more about how to use primary source research.

Each bundle includes a water bottle, a pencil, a pad of sticky notes, and a postcard. These will be stored in boxes or bags that can be taken back to school and distributed there.

We are able to put a hold on dates over the phone or by email, but program request forms must be submitted within three weeks of the hold to finalize your program date, or the date will be re-opened for other groups. Changes may still be made after submitting a request form.

MCHC provides many grants to help make our programs accessible. Please visit our Grant Funding page to learn more, and reach out with any questions.

Please call 410-685-3750, ext. 334, e-mail dwood@mdhistory.org, and/or read our Field Trip Guidelines.

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