The Academic Engagement Department at the Penn Museum is committed to fostering student engagement with our collections. To that end, we welcome and encourage faculty, instructors, and teaching assistants to integrate the large and diverse collections of the Museum into their curriculum. There are many ways to incorporate the collections into your syllabus virtually, through an in-person visit, or with object-based learning in your classroom, and Academic Engagement is happy to help you find the best fit for your course goals.
Digital Resources for Online and In-Person Teaching
- Virtual Gallery Tours of our major galleries and exhibitions, prepared by our wonderful Graduate Guides (currently in preparation).
- Robust Digital Collections of Penn Museum objects, archival photographs and documents, archival films, and public lectures.
- Support for Digital Curation, using Penn Museum collections, to create a full digital exhibit using Omeka or other digital humanities products like Neatline.
- Short Digital Daily Digs videos on a variety of objects from the collection, prepared by Museum staff and graduate students.
- Foreign Language tours and Digital Daily Digs in French, Arabic, and Spanish.
Visit the Museum
The Penn Museum’s collections hold over 1 million objects from across the span of human history up to the present day. Whether your content relates directly to the our collection, or if you’d like to use the Museum as a platform for developing other academic skills, we are glad to work with Penn faculty to create meaningful experiences that match curricular goals.

Gallery Visits

Collections Study Room

Penn Museum Archives

Museum-Intensive Courses
In Your Classroom
We understand that not all classes will be able to come to our building, so we offer several ways to bring the benefits of object-based learning into your regular classroom.

Workshops
Resources
Want to learn more about object-based learning theory and resources? Dig deeper into these resources.

CAAM

Sample Lessons & Activities

Object-Based Teaching & Learning

Faculty Workshops
Non-Penn Instructors
The Academic Engagement Department is glad to welcome non-Penn faculty and students for object-based learning in the galleries and collections study room. Classes can expect to pay the group admission rate, and additional charges may apply for guided tours. Please see our offerings on this page for additional information and to submit a visit request.