For Educators
The Arab American National Museum sees itself as a resource for enhancing the understanding of Arab American history, arts, culture and contributions. The Museum creates and promotes educational content for use by teachers both locally and nationally. For more information, please contact Dave Serio, Educator & Public Programming Specialist, at dserio “at” accesscommunity.org.
Virtual Tour Package
The Virtual Tour Package is a full and immersive experience that brings a wholistic picture of AANM to your group. This option gives teachers a full virtual package in which groups will have access to a kit of materials—recorded virtual tour videos, lesson plans, a quiz, activities, resources and much more—to utilize as they see fit. This package has materials that focus on AANM’s Core Galleries: Coming To America, Living In America and Making An Impact. With this package, educators/groups can utilize the materials at their leisure.
These interactive and educational digital resources give educators a first-class look into our exhibits and provide a wide range of tools for both the educator and their students, to bring a full, enriching experience to classrooms near and far.
Each virtual tour is a complete experience, including access to:
- A guided tour of AANM’s three Core Galleries
- Pre-Teaching exercises
- Interactive, educational and creative activities and lessons for students
- Video, audio and literary resources for the classroom
- Quiz template and answer key
- AANM’s digital objects and archive
- AANM Lesson Plans, which follow the Michigan Department of Education’s K-12 grade level content expectation standards in Social Studies, English & Language Arts and World Languages
Guided Tours
AANM offers high-quality educational and culturally enriching guided tours of our exhibits for groups and school groups, both in-person and virtually. Learn more on our Tours page
Additional Resources
Explore virtual versions of AANM’s Core Galleries: Contributions From the Arab World, Coming to America, Living in America and Making an Impact.
- In many instances, lesson plans often don’t share the experiences and educational component of different groups, including Arab Americans. AANM offers a variety of lesson plans for educators to utilize, that educate classrooms about Arab Americans without excluding the story and history of other communities.
- All AANM lesson plans are linked with the Michigan Department of Education’s K-12 grade level content expectation standards in Social Studies, English & Language Arts and World Languages.
Created in conjunction with Ann Arbor public school teachers and AANM, this Culture Box is available to educators for free. The box includes interactive and educational items including musical instruments, literature and more.
AANM invites educators from far and wide to attend one of our Educator Open House sessions. Here, educators in all fields will get a glimpse into the educational offerings of AANM and resources that can be used in their classroom.
- AANM offers professional development opportunities for educators of all backgrounds. Spanning the course of a day or two, educators will have the opportunity to learn about the Arab American community’s history and culture through a series of workshops, panel discussions, arts and cultural programming and much more.
- Workshops allow educators to obtain unique AANM lesson plans along with cultural and educational knowledge on Arab Americans, have a safe space for questions and dialogue with experts in the field and discover useful resources to use in the classroom.
- We are looking for a small group of educators in the metro Detroit area to be a part of the Smithsonian Youth STEM Exchange program. If you are interested in being part of this initiative, APPLY HERE.
Geared towards children ages 2-6, AANM’s English-Arabic Storytime series features an archive of online storytime videos around different themes, where a storyteller reads picture books in both English and Arabic, teaching a few Arabic words and phrases. Select storytimes are accompanied by activity worksheets.
These family stories are created in the Community History Studio at AANM. Participants can use the studio to scan copies of photos and documents, record audio and combine their words and images in a digital scrapbook.
Written by acclaimed author and researcher Randa Kayyali with AANM, this introductory-level, 52-page book offers an overview of Arab American immigration history, including the recent influx of immigrants, and touches on the themes of religion, cultural traditions and the impact of media stereotyping. It includes graphs, maps and historical images of the Arab American community, many never before published.
Made possible in part by the Institute of Museum and Library Services
For more information or questions please contact Dave Serio, Educator & Public Programming Specialist, at dserio “at” accesscommunity.org.