Welcome Teachers! The content and activities included here can be used to prepare students for their trip to the museum, or simply to supplement classroom learning. Please visit often. New content is added every month!
Educators' Guides
Africa
Educator's Guide
In this Africa pdf you will find curricular materials and activities about African geography, masks, religion, demography and anthropology.
Ancient Egypt
Educator's Guide
In this ancient Egypt pdf you will find a variety of curricular materials that you can use either in conjunction with a visit to the Penn Museum, or simply to support and compliment classroom study of ancient Egypt. Included here is reading content on pharaohs, mummies, pyramids, and hieroglyphs, in addition to quizzes with answer keys, and activities that focus on ancient Egyptian vocabulary. The materials span the subject areas of social studies, language arts, and math.
China
Educator's Guide
In this China pdf you will find curricular materials about the history of domes and the science and math used in the construction of domes, like Penn’s Chinese Rotunda. There is also content on the production of silk.
Math
Educator's Guide
Attention Math Teachers! New Content! In this pdf are six activities entitled Ancient History Math Mystery, Ancient Numeration, Maya Ballcourt Math, Africa by Numbers, Ancient Egyptian Math, and Math of Domes. These activities cover various ancient number systems, including Roman and Shang oracle bone numerals, cuneiform, and Maya. Other activities cover, circumference, radius, area and perimeter; converting percents, decimals and fractions, and problem solving.
Mesoamerica
Educator's Guide
New Content! In this pdf you will find content and activities about the Mesoamerican ballgame and the Maya numeral system.
Other Resources
The activities in these resource guides are designed to supplement student/class visits to Penn Museum's exhibits. (NOTE: As requested by many educators, guides to past exhibits are found here as well.)
Scavenger Hunt
Young people will enjoy this riddle scavenger hunt which takes them on a journey throughout the most popular galleries in the Museum.
Crossword Puzzles
Download a pdf including six crossword puzzles with answer keys which cover Egypt, Buddhism & Hinduism, China, Rome, Greece, and Mesopotamia. All of the words in the puzzles are vocabulary terms related to each area of study. You may provide a list of the answers to differentiate these puzzles for ELL or elementary students.
Self-Guided Tour Brochure
Greatest Hits Tour
Our Greatest Hits Tour brochure features 10 artifacts selected for their intrigue, significance, and beauty – and you can see them all in 60 minutes. Click here to see the slideshow with extended captions.
Secrets of the Silk Road
Educator's Guide
This Educators’ Guide will support and enrich your classroom’s experience of the Secrets of the Silk Road exhibition which was shown at the Penn Museum from February - June 2011. The booklet’s five units of activities correspond to the layout of the exhibition. Each activity connects to national academic standards, covering a range of subjects across the curriculum.
Secrets of the Silk Road
High School Activities
These activities, an addendum to the Secrets of the Silk Road Educators' Guide, are designed especially for high school educators to implement in their classrooms.
Painted Metaphors: Pottery and Politics of the Ancient Maya
Educators' Resource Guide and Activity Ideas
Amarna: Ancient Egypt's Place in the Sun
Inquirer Educational Supplement
Human Evolution: The First 200 Million Years
Formerly Surviving: The Body of Evidence
News in Education Supplement
Online Activities
Watch us on iTunes
Watch and listen to our Highlights of the Galleries Tour and other podcasts and videos on iTunes University.
YouTube
Subscribe to our YouTube channel for videos about exhibitions, events, and programs.
Write Like a Babylonian
This is one of our most popular online activities for primary school teachers and students. Here you can see your monogram in cuneiform, the way an ancient Babylonian might have written it. Visit the site
Plus... download the Phonetic Cuneiform Alphabet
Write Like an Egyptian
Write your name in Egyptian hieroglyphs. Visit the site
Learn more about Egyptian hieroglyphs
Gallery Guides and Activities for Educators
Publications
The following gallery guides are available for purchase at the Museum Shop, or online through the Penn Press store:
Magnificent Objects from the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology
by Jennifer Quick and Deborah I. Olszewski
Since the late nineteenth century hundreds of people, on behalf of the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, have searched for what it means to be human, studying the infinite variety of human cultures. The Museum's extensive collections provide vital clues in this quest.
Guide to the Etruscan and Roman Worlds
by Donald White, Ann Blair Brownlee, Irene Bald Romano, and Jean MacIntosh Turfa
The University Museum's classical collections are among the largest, most diverse, and most systematically collected of those of any museum in the United States. Of particular importance is the Etruscan material, spanning the entire history of the Etruscan peoples, from the ninth to the second centuries B.C. The strengths of the Roman collection are its glass, coins, sculpture, and the excavated objects from the Italian sites of Colonia Minturnae and the Sanctuary of Diana at Nemi.
Guide to the Mesoamerican Gallery at the University of Pennsylvania Museum
by Elin C. Danien
The University Museum has been involved in Mesoamerican archaeology for more than a century. Its collections include material from northern Mexico to Costa Rica and represent all of the major cultures of the region. This guide allows the visitor to gain on-site understanding and the off-site reader to grasp how the Museum's collections fit into current archaeological theory.
Guide to the Native American Gallery at the University of Pennsylvania Museum
by Lucy Fowler Williams
Totaling approximately 40,000 objects, the University Museum's ethnographic holdings represent native peoples from ten North American culture areas—the Arctic, Subarctic, Northwest Coast, California, Plateau, Great Basin, Southwest, Great Plains, Northeast, and the Southeast.
