Lesson Plans

Bring the museum into your classroom with this interactive, standards-aligned lesson plan designed for middle and high school students. Discover what was happening right here in Ventura County during the American Revolution as students explore Spanish colonial expansion alongside Chumash endurance, resistance, and modern cultural revitalization through an engaging exhibit gallery walk and scavenger hunt!

Demonstrate understanding of the elements of art, including line, shape, color, value, texture, and space, to set the mood and feel of a scene.

Understand how the local natural resources were and are used by Chumash people to make baskets. Students will weave their own baskets.

Read and comprehend a cultural story. Show comprehension through illustrating appropriate drawings that reflect what is happening in the story. Compare the difference in the oral story and the written story.

Illustrate how plants and animals interact in the world around them. Observe and investigate the local natural environment. Use evidence to describe how the environment changes due to their environment.

Ask the students: “Who likes to be outside?” “Who likes to learn?” Say “We can do both! We can learn about nature by spending time outside and paying special attention to what’s around us. We are going to focus on a plant or animal that we think is super interesting and draw what we see. We are going to focus on how that plant or animal behaves or looks to help it survive.

What do you do when you are really sick? Who helps you? (family, doctors, nurses) These people are important in our lives. They help our community in many ways. Today we are going to learn about one important doctor in Ventura’s history and then write a letter to health professionals that help us today. 

What do you do when you are really sick? Who helps you? (family, doctors, nurses) These people are important in our lives. They help our community in many ways. Today we are going to learn about one important doctor in Ventura’s history and then write a letter to health professionals that help us today. 

What do you do when you are really sick? Who helps you? (family, doctors, nurses) These people are important in our lives. They help our community in many ways. Today we are going to learn about one important doctor in Ventura’s history and then write a letter to health professionals that help us today. 

What do you do when you are really sick? Who helps you? (family, doctors, nurses) These people are important in our lives. They help our community in many ways. Today we are going to learn about one important doctor in Ventura’s history and then write a letter to health professionals that help us today. 

Demonstrate understanding of ecosystems Describe the life cycle and/or migratory pattern of the monarch butterfly (collaboratively or independently, depending on grade level) based on their understanding of the short National Geographic video, image, and text of the butterfly life cycle and migratory pattern.