Virtual Field Trip Programs for grades 6-8
Virtual Field Trips for 6-8 Classes
VFT programs for grades 6-8 encourage close looking, communication, and collaboration using inquiry-based strategies. Read about our cross-disciplinary options and schedule below.
Art
Elements & Principles of Art
Color
available starting 9/10
Focal Point
Students will look carefully at objects from the museum’s permanent collection to explore how artists use the principle of focal point. Students will discover how artists emphasize their works’ most important part(s) through placement, contrast, and converging lines to move the viewers’ eyes where they want them to go.
NCSCoS Connections to Visual Art
Selfies & Usies
What can you tell about a person just by the way they present themselves visually? While exploring historical and contemporary portraits from the NCMA’s permanent collection, and what artists and sitters choose to present in these portraits, students will ‘read’ the stories the artists are telling about the sitters.
NCSCoS Connections to Visual Art, Social Studies, and English Language Arts
Careers in Museums
What’s a Curator of Ancient Collections?
available starting 10/19
English Language Arts
Choose Your Own Adventure: Group Narrative Writing
Students will view and discuss many works of art from different areas of the NCMA’s permanent collection. Together, students will select artworks that represent key components of a narrative: characters, setting, conflict, and solution, and discuss a possible plot to create a collective story around their chosen works of art.
NCSCoS Connections to English Language Arts and Visual Art
Math
Artists as Real-World Problem Solvers
Students will engage with objects from the museum’s collection and explore their uses of:
- geometry, area & perimeter, ratios, and coordinate planes (for Math 6, and Math 6 +)
- geometry, scale drawing and ratios, coordinate planes, and congruence through transformations. (for Math 7, Math 7 +, Math 8, and Compacted Math)
Students will have the opportunity to solve the mathematical problems that artists, curators, and art handlers might deal with in their everyday jobs. Please have calculators available for students, if necessary. This program comes with an optional Post-VFT Art Kit. Order yours at registration.
NCSCoS Connections to Math, Visual Art, Social Studies, and English Language Arts
Science
Forces & Motion
Students will use all five of their senses to carefully observe three works of art from the NCMA’s permanent collection, looking for evidence of forces that cause objects to move. Students will explore how artists use “tricks” to imply movement in art that doesn’t actually move, comparing that to a kinetic sculpture that does move.
NCSCoS Connections to Science, Visual Art, and English Language Arts
Weather
Students will use all five of their senses to carefully observe three works of art from the NCMA’s permanent collection, looking for evidence of temperature, wind, and precipitation to determine the weather that each artist shows and explore how each weather condition is created.
NCSCoS Connections to Science, Visual Art, and English Language Arts
Social Studies
Mesoamerican Ballgame
Using visual analysis, students will examine two different objects from the Ancient Americas collection and think about the role of sports in community. Using what they learned, students will have the opportunity to work together and design their own game, continuing a tradition of community and play. Collaboration with your school’s PE teacher is recommended for this program, but not required.
NCSCoS Connections to Visual Art, Social Studies, Physical Education, English Language Arts, and International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE)
Animal Masquerades
Using visual analysis, students will examine masks from two different West African cultures featuring animal imagery, and learn about their uses and symbolism. Using what they learned, students will have the opportunity to design animal imagery that represents them.
NCSCoS Connections to Visual Art, Social Studies, and English Language Arts
Discovering Día de los Muertos
Students will observe an ofrenda, one aspect of the Mexican celebration of Día de los Muertos and discover how the symbols used in the ofrenda celebrate and remember ancestors while connecting to indigenous Mexican cultural practices shown through museum objects. This program comes with an optional Post-VFT Art Kit. Order yours at registration.
NCSCoS Connections to Visual Art, Social Studies, and English Language Arts
Our State: NC Art & Artists
Students will connect with their state through maps, museum objects about NC by NC Artists, and their own experience to consider how pastimes might be different in the three geographic regions of the state.
NCSCoS Connections to Social Studies, Visual Art, and English Language Arts
Explore Ancient Cultures:
Egypt, Greece, or Rome
What can we learn about ancient cultures by observing objects made by ancient people? In this VFT, students gain insight into Ancient cultures by exploring objects from the NCMA’s permanent collection as primary sources. Students will be led through a virtual archaeological site to search for museum objects and observe them using Sketchfab 3-D imagery. These programs come with an optional Post-VFT Art Kit; order yours at registration.
NCSCoS Connections to Social Studies, Visual Art, and English Language Arts
The Stories Art Can Tell,
In each of these VFTs, students will explore three works of art from the NCMA’s permanent collection featuring artists from a group that museums have historically excluded or under-represented. Through reading the works by different featured artist groups, students will practice the social emotional learning competencies of self and social-awareness and relationship skills.
featuring Black Artists
Students will “read” works of art from the permanent collection by African American artists and explore how each artist tells a story of Black History through their unique use of art elements and media.
NCSCoS Connections to Social Studies, Visual Art, English Language Arts, and Social Emotional Learning
featuring Indigenous Artists
Students will “read” works of art from the permanent collection by Indigenous North American artists and explore how each artist tells a story of Native American past, present, and future. Students will discover how each artist uses their media and scale to elevate and point to the universality of these stories.
NCSCoS Connections to Social Studies, Visual Art, English Language Arts, and Social Emotional Learning
featuring Latin American Artists
Students will “read” works of art from the permanent collection by Latin American artists and explore how each artist tells a story about their identity through images of place. Please have students come to their session with two pieces of paper each, any color. This program comes with an optional Post-VFT Art Kit. Order yours at registration.
NCSCoS Connections to Social Studies, Visual Art, English Language Arts, and Social Emotional Learning
featuring Women Artists
Students will “read” works of art from the permanent collection by women artists and how each artist tells a story about their own intersecting identities through images of women. This program comes with an optional Post-VFT Art Kit. Order yours at registration.
NCSCoS Connections to Social Studies, Visual Art, English Language Arts, and Social Emotional Learning
World Language
See our Spanish Language Programs page for more details
Historias que el arte puede contar sobre Artistas Latinos
Spanish Language Program
NCSCoS Connections to World Languages, Visual Art, Social Studies, and English Language Arts
Exploring the Art and Language of Hispanic Artists
Bilingual Program for native English speakers learning Spanish or for native Spanish speakers learning English
Here, a museum educator shows students how to use the virtual archeological site to find ancient Greek objects from the collection.
Virtual Field Trips for 6-8 classes