History on Display

Living in Raleigh, I sometimes forget the amazing opportunities I have right in my backyard! We have art, history, parks and so much more and so much of it is free! I have lived here my entire life and have a tendency to forget all of the options. Thanks to one of my current classes, I get the opportunity to reintroduce myself to some of these great opportunities. My most current adventure was to the North Carolina History Museum earlier this week. As a history buff and native North Carolinian, I loved this experience. They have everything from a rendering of Native American woman recreated from her actual skeleton to Dale Earnhardt's race car. They even have a picture of Paul B. Gay stadium from Lee Senior High School (my husbands high school) in the North Carolina Sports Hall of
Fame. I realized during our visit that the museum has something for everyone.

During our visit, my favorite current exhibit is concerning the old fishing boats from eastern North Carolina. This was a photography exhibit mixed with a few artifacts including an actual flat bottomed skiff donated from a fisherman's family. As a person who loves fishing and the coast of North Carolina, this was a really interesting experience. Seeing these old boats as a piece of history as well as art showed a side of North Carolina that I feel many people do not get to see. These old boats, sometimes abandoned, are not junk, they are a piece of eastern North Carolina's history and hopefully it's future.




The one downside to the museum is that most of their exhibits are very temporary which could cause issues for lesson planning around the museum. Currently, the only permanent exhibit is the sport's hall of fame. Coming soon, the museum will have a time line of North Carolina as a permanent exhibit as well, but everything else is temporary. This means that planning is key! If you know you want to expose your students to a specific exhibit that is temporary, you would need to schedule your tour carefully to ensure it is still available. I do think that it is great that past exhibits are available through their website to be used within the classroom, but that is not really the same as walking through the museum and seeing all of the pieces in person.
I am already planning my next trip to the history museum. I feel like you could walk through each exhibit numerous times and see something new each time!