Before Your Visit

You don't have to be an expert on The Henry Ford to use it creatively with your students.  The Henry Ford is a place where students can immerse themselves in the past and enhance their observing, describing, analyzing, comparing, contrasting, evaluating, imagining and predicting skills.

If possible visit The Henry Ford before you bring your students. The Field Trip Thank You and Welcome that you receive in the mail before your visit includes a free pre-visit pass to Henry Ford Museum or Greenfield Village for teachers for the purpose of planning your field trip.

Discuss with students their experiences and expectations of museums. What are museums? What do they do? What is their purpose? Which ones have students visited?

Relate museum collections to their own collections. Have student bring things from their own collections.  How do they organize it and take care of it?  What are their rules for others who want to see or use their collections? Have students make up and commit to rules they should follow while visiting The Henry Ford.

Before you visit, select and copy the History Hunter(s) you would like your student sleuths to use during their visits. You may wish to organize students into groups of 5-10 students and assign them to a group leader. Small groups allow for easier interaction with staff at the Museum, Village and Factory Tour. We require at least one adult group leader for every ten students.

Visit our website at www.thehenryford.org to get better acquainted with the exhibits in the Museum, the sites in the Village or the five unique components of the Factory Tour. Preview the interactive maps of Henry Ford Museum and Greenfield Village to see artifacts, buildings and exhibits students will encounter during their visit.

During Your Visit

Distribute History Hunters and pencils to group leaders and students and review your expectations for the field trip experience.

Teachers and group leaders can help facilitate the History Hunter experience.  Urge your group leaders to help students by not providing answers, but by encouraging them to explore and discover our American past for themselves and with each other.

Teachers and group leaders will receive The Henry Ford Visitor Guide when they enter Henry Ford Museum or Greenfield Village. All buildings in Greenfield Village are numbered on the map and on the History Hunters.

All school groups visiting the Ford Rouge Factory Tour will do so in the following program sequence: Station 1--Legacy Theater, Station 2--Art of Manufacturing Theater, Station 3--Observation Deck, Station 4--Assembly Plant, and Station 5--Legacy Gallery.

After Your Visit

Invite students to share and talk about what they learned, saw, heard and did while completing their History Hunters. Discuss and seek answers to new questions that they have as a result of their visit.  To answer questions or conduct additional research, check the Bibliography of Print and Online Resources.

Ask students to develop a newspaper, online journal, blog or poster that describes and demonstrates their experience.  Brainstorm a list of topics that could be explored.  These could include favorite artifacts, sites or exhibits; new ideas and innovations encountered; interesting individuals or groups from the past, etc.

Challenge students to create a poster that focuses on what they thought were the most interesting inventions, innovations, people or events that they encountered during their visit to Henry Ford Museum, Greenfield Village or Ford Rouge Factory Tour.

Urge students to develop their own History Hunters on topics that interest and excite them. 

Student can send their ideas, questions and drawings to:

History Hunters
Historical Resources and Education
The Henry Ford
20900 Oakwood Boulevard
Dearborn, MI 48124