Bringing Your Class to the Archives
Contact the La Crosse Public Library or UWL Murphy Library Special Collections and Area Research Center if you want to bring your class in for an orientation of any of the following:
- Introduction to archives and historic materials
- NHD topics and research
- Introduction to finding aids
- Primary vs. secondary sources
- Using archival manuscript collections
- Finding primary sources
- Citing primary sources
- Using online resources for history research
- Connecting local topics to national and global themes and ideas
- Archives "backstage" tour
- Neighborhood walking, bike, or bus tours relating to architecture and community history (LPLA only)
- Neighborhood scavenger hunts (LPLA only)
- Walking tours with Hear, Here stories (LPLA only)
- Badger Detectives, an introduction to civics program designed for 4th graders (LPLA only)
Our staff is trained for very flexible educational programs like this for all learning levels and we welcome new ideas for outreach! We value matching our programming with your lesson plans as well as Wisconsin State education standards.
We understand if you are having difficulties scheduling a visit due to budget and time constraints. Please contact the archives if you have questions about working around these constraints in your curriculum—you have options!
(Above) Bangor Elementary School 4th graders attending the 2020 Badger Detectives program, where they learn the basics of tax dollars, civics, and how public libraries are funded. For this programs, librarians and archivists also take the students through activities that teach critical analysis skills like separating facts from assumptions while looking at local historic photographs.
(Above) UWL History class learning how to use archival collections at the La Crosse Public Library Archives.