Museum resources

Many museums have excellent online exhibits and databases of images and several also publish lesson plans and curriculum that are applicable to social studies classrooms of all levels.

Teach Japan

• Teach Japan is a new (2016) collaboration between several museums and the Japan Foundation Center for Global Partnership. It allows you to search multiple collections by grade level and resource type.

Online Museum Resources on Asian Art (AFE)

• Asia for Educators at Columbia University compiled OMRAA, a list of online exhibits and resources. It is an excellent place to start looking for images, artifacts and essays. We also recommend checking for new resources directly with the following sites:

The American Museum of Natural History (New York)

• The AMNH Division of Anthropology’s collections database is online and fully searchable.

The Asian Art Museum (San Francisco)

• The education department at the Asian Art Museum shares essays, videos and lesson plans.

The British Museum (London)

• The Teaching History with 100 Objects project includes extensive ideas about teaching with a few key East Asian artifacts.

The Field Museum (Chicago)

• Educator Toolkit for the Cyrus Tang Hall of China – This webpage includes links to ten separate activities which accompany the museum’s online Cyrus Tang Hall of China exhibit. All of the activities are based on inquiry, empathy and object-based learning. All of the PDFs are available in English and Spanish on The Field Museum website

The International Dunhuang Project

• IDP offers a variety of online resources for teaching about the Silk Road. The site includes a database of close to 500,000 images, as well as curated lesson plans and activities.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York)

• In addition to a trove of lesson plans, the Met produces the Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History, which is a great general timeline resource, as well as a comprehensive overview of East Asian art history. Be sure to scroll down to select a country and time period. After selecting one, scroll down and click “key events.”

The National Museums, Japan (Tokyo)

• Browse Japan’s online collection of National Treasures and Important Cultural Properties.

The National Palace Museum (Taipei)

• NPM’s Anime Carnival website includes several fun videos that bring art to life for students.