School Tours
The Skirball Cultural Center’s school outreach programs offer museum and performing arts experiences for Pre-K–Grade 12 that celebrate community and diversity and explore shared values. Public schools as well as private secular and religious schools of all denominations are welcome to participate in these highly interactive, California State Standards–aligned programs. Our programs focus on building understanding across cultures and inspiring students to engage in improving the world around them.
If you are a teacher new to the Skirball, or need information about registering for School Programs or obtaining bus and admission scholarships, please visit Teachers New to the Skirball and Frequently Asked Questions.
If you have already taken a tour or attended a performing arts program and would like to provide us with feedback about your experience, please click here.
When planning your school tour, please keep in mind that certain tours are unavailable on holidays and other select dates. To download a list of blackout dates for 2011–2012, please click here.
Registration begins on Friday, July 1 at 12:00 p.m.
School Tours for 2011-12
Women Hold Up Half the Sky
Noah's Ark at the Skirball
Four Thousand Years of Journeys
At Home in L.A.
Architecture at the Skirball
Americans and Their Family Stories
Archaeology of the Near East
Ordinary Objects, Extraordinary Stories: Immigration Journeys to America
American Identity: Immigration in the Age of Diversity
Introduction to Jewish Culture and Religion
The Nuremberg Laws: A Turning Point in Jewish History
Light and Shadows
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Suggested number of students: 40
Duration of visit: 2 hours
CA state standards covered: Social Studies, Language Arts, Visual and Performing Arts
This groundbreaking exhibition was inspired by the bestselling book Half the Sky by Nicholas D. Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn. Like the book, the exhibition explores the worldwide oppression of women as the most urgent human rights cause of our time and focuses on how solving gender inequality can help solve many of the world’s most severe problems, from poverty to terrorism to child mortality. Ultimately, it celebrates the individual's role in being part of workable solutions. In the school tour, students will experience—through immersive sound installations, photographs, and more—stories of women from around the world who have changed their lives through education, economics, and self-determination. Opportunities for students to take action and engage in dialogue with individuals working on behalf of women seeking to free themselves from trafficking, violence, or threats to their health will be part of the gallery experience.
To download Women Hold Up Half the Sky Pre-Visit Materials, click here.
To download Women Hold Up Half the Sky Pre-Visit Materials specifically designed for
Jewish schools, click here.
To register for this tour, click here.
Photo by Nicholas D. Kristof
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Suggested number of students: 15–40
Duration of visit: 11/2 hours
CA state standards covered: Social Studies, Science, Language Arts, Visual and Performing Arts
Please note that Noah’s Ark school program for 2011-2012 school year is fully booked. If you would like to be added to our waitlist, please click here and submit the form. We will contact you as soon as dates become available.
Come aboard the Skirball's award-winning children's and family destination! Inside this floor-to-ceiling wooden ark, students and teachers take part in a variety of hands-on, communal activities, including making music with handcrafted instruments, "conducting" a storm using low-tech devices, climbing the rafters, and working together to care for the ark's inhabitants.
Interested in signing up for our Be a Build a Better World School Initiative?
Are you a Grade 1 or 2 teacher interested in extending your Noah's Ark experience into the classroom? Want to complete a post-visit learning project associated with the themes of Noah's Ark? Apply to participate in our Build a Better World initiative when you fill out your online Pre-K–Grade 2 Noah's Ark school tour registration form (check the Build a Better World box on the form). Selected schools will receive admissions scholarships for their tours and will work closely with Skirball staff educators to create class service projects. Then share photo or video documentation and/or student work with the Skirball to inspire other teachers and students. This initiative is a great way for your students to explore, within your existing curriculum, how to make the world a better place.
Note: The Build a Better World school initiative is open to Grades 1 and 2 only.
To download Noah’s Ark at the Skirball Pre-Visit materials Pre-K–Kindergarten click here.
To download Noah’s Ark at the Skirball Pre-Visit materials Grades 1–2 click here.
To register for this tour, click here.
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Suggested number of students: 15–40
Duration of visit: 2 hours
CA state standards covered: Social Studies, Visual and Performing Arts
Please note that 4000 Years of Journeys school program for 2011-2012 school year is fully booked. If you would like to be added to our waitlist, please click here and submit the form. We will contact you as soon as dates become available.
In this newly redesigned tour, students gain insight into the meaning of culture through exploration of the language, music, food, and clothing of Jewish communities in China, Israel, Spain, and Eastern Europe. This immersive journey through 4,000 years of Jewish history teaches students about the core beliefs, rituals, and traditions of storytelling that Jews retained even as they migrated and adapted to life in new lands. The tour experience culminates in a take-home art project inspired by objects in the Skirball collection.
Note: This tour will only be offered after February 7, 2012.
To register for this tour, click here.
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Suggested number of students: 15–40
Duration of visit: 2 hours
CA state standards covered: Social Studies, Visual and Performing Arts
Please note that At Home in L.A. school program for 2011-2012 school year is fully booked. If you would like to be added to our waitlist, please click here and submit the form. We will contact you as soon as dates become available.
Explore the cultural landscape of present-day Los Angeles on a journey through three galleries of the Skirball’s permanent exhibition Visions and Values: Jewish Life from Antiquity to America. On this school tour, students examine aspects of Jewish culture, including art, music, and community service in contemporary Los Angeles, and discover similarities with other cultures. The tour culminates in a take-home art project.
To download At Home in L.A. Pre-Visit materials, please click here.
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Suggested number of students: 15–40
Duration of visit: 2 hours
CA standards covered: Social Studies, Mathematics, Science, Visual and Performing Arts
Please note that Architecture at the Skirball school program for 2011-2012 school year is fully booked. If you would like to be added to our waitlist, please click here and submit the form. We will contact you as soon as dates become available.
Redesigned for 2012! Using the dynamic indoor and outdoor spaces of the Skirball campus, students learn about the discipline of architecture through a blend of art, math, and science. Included in this program is an architecture workshop in which teams of students design and construct a community building of their own.
Note: Due to the outdoor nature of the program, “Architecture at the Skirball” will only be available after March 1, 2012.
To download Architecture at the Skirball Pre-Visit materials, click here.
To register for this tour, click here.
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Suggested number of students: 15–60
Duration of visit: 2 hours
CA state standards covered: Social Studies
Please note that Americans and Their Family Stories school program for 2011-2012 school year is fully booked. If you would like to be added to our waitlist, please click here and submit the form. We will contact you as soon as dates become available.
What was it like to be an immigrant to America at the turn of the twentieth century? Find out by unpacking suitcases modeled after those brought by immigrant families from different countries, eras, and cultures. Students travel on an imaginary journey by boat across the Atlantic, undergo disembarking at Ellis Island, attend school in a 1908 classroom, and get jobs in a bustling New York City neighborhood. In imagining how immigrants adapt to new environments, students reflect on the challenges and opportunities we all face as a nation of immigrants.
To download Americans and Their Family Stories Pre-Visit materials, click here.
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Suggested number of students: 15–60
Duration of visit: 2 hours
CA state standards covered: Social Studies
Please note that Archaeology of the Near East school program for 2011-2012 school year is fully booked. If you would like to be added to our waitlist, please click here and submit the form. We will contact you as soon as dates become available.
During this school tour, students examine antiquities from the Near East and begin to understand the shared needs of all peoples, past and present. Through cooperative learning, critical thinking, and hands-on activities, students examine history, geography, economics, religion, and other important cultural concepts from the Iron Age. At the Skirball’s simulated dig site, students use authentic tools of the trade to interpret life in an ancient town.
Note: In the event of rain, an indoor alternative is substituted for the dig-site activity.
To download Archaeology of the Near East Pre-Visit materials, click here.
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Suggested number of students: 15–40
Duration of visit: 2 hours
CA state standards covered: Social Studies, Visual and Performing Arts
Please note that Ordinary Objects, Extraordinary Storries: Immigration Journeys to America school program for 2011-2012 school year is fully booked. If you would like to be added to our waitlist, please click here and submit the form. We will contact you as soon as dates become available.
What do a can of vegetables and a Hanukkah lamp have in common? Or a Spanish tea set and a recipe for chicken soup? Students on this tour discover how daily and ritual objects are part of the complex story of how immigrants integrate into and continually shape American culture. Students engage in small-group projects, discussions, and art-making activities to understand how Old World customs blend with new identities and explore the stories of and connections between immigrants from all over the world.
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Suggested number of students: 15–40
Duration of visit: 2 hours
CA state standards covered: Social Studies
New for teens! What is the connection between an immigration experience and the formation of personal identity? In a gallery-based setting, students will be challenged to articulate how their own family histories and journeys contribute to the diversity of contemporary American life. When faced with provocative questions surrounding culture, immigrant journeys, and individual choices, students will connect with Jewish stories from the collection as springboards for reflecting on their own identities and belief systems.
To register for this tour, click here.
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Suggested number of students: 15–40
Duration of visit: 1 hour (12:00 p.m. start time only)
CA state standards covered: Social Studies
On this school tour of the Skirball’s permanent exhibition Vision and Values: Jewish Life from Antiquity to America, students discover the opportunities and challenges encountered by Jewish people in the modern world and gain insight into how cultural groups adapt to a community while retaining their core beliefs and practices.
To register for this tour, click here.
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Suggested number of students: 15–40
Duration of visit: 1 hour (12:00 p.m. start time only)
CA state standards covered: Social Studies
In this program, students learn about German Jewish society before World War II; view facsimiles of the Nuremberg Laws, which became the blueprint for National Socialism and the Third Reich; hear about the atrocities of the Holocaust; and discuss the importance of civic engagement and public activism as ways to prevent such tragedies in the future.
To register for this tour, click here.
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Light and Shadows: The Story of Iran and the JewsPlease note that this exhibition and the accompanying school tour will not take place at the Skirball. The exhibition will be presented instead at the Fowler Museum at UCLA in the fall of 2012. Visit www.fowler.ucla.edu for information. |
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