Smithsonian Teachers’ Night: More than free posters!

Friday, October 21st may have been chilly and quiet on the outside, but that night the inside of the National Museum of the American Indian was filled to the brim with warm and energetic educators. In fact, thousands of local teachers were expected to attend the Smithsonian Teachers' Night 2011.

 

Susan Frampton manning the Smithsonian Libraries table at Teachers' Night.

 

Each year the Smithsonian invites teachers to this free event, with the opportunity to meet Smithsonian staff, discover new educational resources from the Institution and attend demonstrations. Representing the Smithsonian Libraries this year were Susan Frampton, Trina Brown and Erin Rushing. The trio manned a table stacked high with posters, bookmarks and SIL brochures. They quickly learned that the posters, created for our Picturing Words: The Power of Book Illustration exhibit, were very popular for classroom decoration. Teachers who had received them years before sought out new copies to replaces ones damaged in office moves. Bookmarks, which are often used as prizes in the classroom, were also a hit.

 

Posters and bookmarks were extremely popular.

 

In addition to passing out freebies, the Libraries staff discussed SIL resources that could benefit teachers in the classroom. Many science teachers were interested to hear about the Biodiversity Heritage Library and just about every educator was pointed to our Galaxy of Images to find more pretty pictures like those used on our bookmarks.

 

Trina Brown discusses SIL resources with an educator.

 

These photos don't show some of the more frenzied points of the evening. Several times the line for SIL materials was seven people deep! We were thrilled to see so many teachers interested in our resources and we're looking forward to the 2012 event!

Did you attend Smithsonian Teachers' Night? What did you think? We would love to hear from you!