Tours

School Tours
A class visit to the Anchorage Museum at Rasmuson Center makes Alaska's history and art come alive! To schedule a field trip to the Anchorage Museum, please send a tour request form to the Anchorage School District Community Resources Office. Consult your school secretary or librarian for the forms. It is recommended that teachers schedule only one Museum tour during a field trip. For more information about the content of tours, please call our Education Director at (907) 343-6185.

Other Tour Offerings

Alaska Gallery
September 1 - May 4
The Alaska Gallery offers young people a myriad of opportunities to learn about Alaska and its people. It is the perfect place to reinforce studies about Alaska Native peoples, early Anchorage, and subjects such as Alaska transportation, housing, clothing, and Native celebrations. Plan to make two or more visits to the Gallery and treat your students to the excitement of seeing, and sometimes handling, the "real stuff." Cameras are welcome.

Alaska Native Cultures Tour
This tour presents students with an overview of Alaska Native people with emphasis on clothing, transportation, housing and tools. Students will view displays showing traditional and post-contact Native lifestyles and will share tochette materials. This tour is designed to compliment third grade social studiescurriculum and is recommended as the culmination of Alaska Native studies in order for students to recognize and appreciate the objects about which they have been studying. One and one-half hour tour. Recommended for grade 3 and above.

Single Alaska Native Culture Group Tours
Tours of Tlingit/Haida Indians, Athabscan Indians, Aleut/Unangan, and Eskimo people are designed to concentrate on one culture group, with emphasis on the Bering Land Bridge migration theory, archaeological materials, traditional lifestyles, and trade contact. Each tour includes sharing touchette materials and an art project. Tlingit/Haida headdresses; Athabascan baby belts; Aleut/Unangan hunting hats; or Eskimo snow goggles. One and one-half hour tour. Recommended for grade 3 and above.

Alaska Native Celebrations
Children will view the Alaska Native displays, with emphasis on Native forms of celebration and regalia. Students will try on clothing and share touchette materials. One-hour tour. Recommended for kindergarten and grade 1.

Alaska Transportation, Housing or Clothing Tours
These tours include a walk through the Alaska Gallery to see and compare various means of transportation, housing, or clothing used in Alaska throughout its history. Students will view Alaska people displays, a gold miner's cabin, an early Anchorage scene, a World War II display, and contemporary Alaska displays, with emphasis on materials and construction of housing, clothing, or modes of transportation. Some touchette materials will be available to share. One-hour tours cover just one of the three subjects. Recommended for kindergarten and grade 1.

Early Anchorage Tour
Second grade students studying about Anchorage will particularly enjoy and benefit from this tour which includes displays featuring the building of the Alaska Railroad and the settling of Anchorage. Railroad materials, a railroad diorama, the original map of Anchorage, and an Anchorage house circa 1920 nare included. Students will share touchette materials and design and draw their own railroad cars. One and one-half hour tours.

Alaska History Tour
This tour is designed for students studying Alaska history. It includes a walk through the Alaska Gallery, making special reference to major periods in the story of the peopling of Alaska: the Native peoples of Alaska, exploration of the North Pacific, Russian America, American whaling, gold mining, the building of the railroad, World War II, statehood, and Alaska today. Students will learn about how contact changed people and cultures, trading and the industries that developed, and the major leaders in Alaska today. Some touchette materials will be presented and students may participate in a Gallery Search, in which they find the answers to questions by looking at the dispalys on their own or in pairs. One and one-half hour tour recommended for grade 4 and up.

Art of the Far North
September 1 - May 4
The Anchorage Museum art collection presents the history of western art production in Alaska in landscapes, portraits, works about animals, and lifestyles in the North. Students learn about historic artists like John Webber, Thomas Hill, and Sydney Laurence as well as contemporary Alaska artists who have created works of art using these same themes. Students are also exposed to art historical and critical thinking, engage in a discussion of aesthetics, and become experts at looking at and talking about works of art. A gallery workbook, samples of artists' tools and materials, and a drwing project in the galleries complete the tour. Tours are recommended for all grades, one hour tours for kindergarten and grade 1, one and one-half hour tours for grade 2 and above.

Dolls and Toys
November 27 - January 4
Students and their teachers and parents are invited to celebrate the winter holiday season with a visit to the Museum Atrium tom see antique dolls and toys, African folk dolls, Mexican wood carvings, a completely furnished Victorian doll house, and 14 carousel animals. All are on display in a winter wonderland setting of evergreen and snow-covered birch trees. Tours include an art project. This one-hour tour is recommended for grades K through 3.

Annual Anchorage School District Art Exhibition
March - April
Art resource teachers and classroom teachers are invited to bring their classes to the Museum to conduct their own art lessons while viewing the work of students from throughout the Anchorage School District in grades K-12. Basic supplies are furnished. Recommended for all grades.

Check this page regularly for updates. Tours offered in conjunction with special exhibitions will be posted here.