These first-hand experiences with ancient and Medieval materials and technologies are one part of the Museum Program’s larger mandate (among many others) to scaffold the skills, methods, and content of a global art history course into the K-12 academic curricula.

Once they uncovered armor in their backyard excavations, the third-graders were ready for anything. Everyone was mesmerized when Jeff Wasson, a professional armorer, and his assistant bronze smith, Chris van Wickler, heated up their portable forge in the backyard at First Program, and hammered steel and iron into Medieval-style armor and household equipment. Each student even had time to take hammer to steel, and punch their own designs into a small metal plate.

The fifth-graders had a different, but equally magical experience, with metallurgy – one designed specifically with their ancient Egyptian curriculum in mind. Each class watched in wonder as Jeff Wasson poured fiery molten bronze into his self-made mold of a shabti figurine, an Egyptian funerary statue. So, that’s why they call it the Bronze Age!

The next day, the fifth-graders were cracking 300 eggs to make enough egg tempera to paint their Egyptian-style masks and other artifacts – the last step in a 3-day production process that started with the ancient Egyptian technique of cartonnage. Patricia Miranda, a materials expert, showed the students how to make their artifacts by layering wet linen and gesso over a simple mold, and then how to gild and paint the dried plaster surface.

The past has never been so alive!