Format
Videoconference presenters show portraits from the museum’s collection using the Smithsonian Learning Lab platform (https://learninglab.si.edu/org/NPG). Through inquiry-based questions and discussion, presenters engage with participants as they explore the portraits together.
Objectives
After completing the program, students will be better able to:
• Identify key components of a portrait and discuss what one can learn about the sitter through these components.
• Identify and analyze the contributions that sitters made in their STEAM fields of expertise.
• Use the museum’s collection and portraiture as a springboard to exploring a variety of STEAM concepts.
Standards Alignment
National Standards
Science & Technical Subjects » Grade 6-8
Standards in this strand:
Key Ideas and Details:
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RST.6-8.1
Cite specific textual evidence to support analysis of science and technical texts.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RST.6-8.2
Determine the central ideas or conclusions of a text; provide an accurate summary of the text distinct from prior knowledge or opinions.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RST.6-8.3
Follow precisely a multistep procedure when carrying out experiments, taking measurements, or performing technical tasks.
Craft and Structure:
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RST.6-8.4
Determine the meaning of symbols, key terms, and other domain-specific words and phrases as they are used in a specific scientific or technical context relevant to grades 6-8 texts and topics.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RST.6-8.5
Analyze the structure an author uses to organize a text, including how the major sections contribute to the whole and to an understanding of the topic.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RST.6-8.6
Analyze the author’s purpose in providing an explanation, describing a procedure, or discussing an experiment in a text.
Integration of Knowledge and Ideas:
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RST.6-8.7
Integrate quantitative or technical information expressed in words in a text with a version of that information expressed visually (e.g., in a flowchart, diagram, model, graph, or table).
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RST.6-8.8
Distinguish among facts, reasoned judgment based on research findings, and speculation in a text.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RST.6-8.9
Compare and contrast the information gained from experiments, simulations, video, or multimedia sources with that gained from reading a text on the same topic.
Range of Reading and Level of Text Complexity:
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RST.6-8.10
By the end of grade 8, read and comprehend science/technical texts in the grades 6-8 text complexity band independently and proficiently.
State Standards
DC/Maryland/Virginia
Mathematics Grade 6
Ratios and Proportional Relationships
• Understand ratio concepts and use ratio reasoning to solve problems.
The Number System
• Apply and extend previous understandings of multiplication and division to divide fractions by fractions.
• Multiply and divide multi-digit numbers and find common factors and multiples.
• Apply and extend previous understandings of numbers to the system of rational numbers.
Expressions and Equations
• Apply and extend previous understandings of arithmetic to algebraic expressions.
• Reason about and solve one-variable equations and inequalities.
• Represent and analyze quantitative relationships between dependent and independent variables.
Geometry
• Solve real-world and mathematical problems involving area, surface area, and volume.
Statistics and Probability
• Develop understanding of statistical variability.
• Summarize and describe distributions.
Mathematical Practices
11. Make sense of problems and persevere in solving them.
12. Reason abstractly and quantitatively.
13. Construct viable arguments and critique the reasoning of others.
14. Model with mathematics.
15. Use appropriate tools strategically.
16. Attend to precision.
17. Look for and make use of structure.
18. Look for and express regularity in repeated reasoning.