Program: School Library System
Audience: school librarians, classroom teachers, art teachers
Dates: 11/13/2025
New This free streamlined one-day professional development session helps educators gain CTLE (Continuing Teacher and Leader Education) credits and provides training from history experts, and museum curatorial and education staff on how to use 19th-century American landscape paintings to teach required curriculum topics. This year marks the 200th Anniversary of Thomas Cole's first trip to Catskill, New York (1825-2025) during a turning point in American history and art.
Learning Objectives:
Learn new techniques from history experts on how to use Thomas Cole's 1825 American landscape paintings to teach the history curriculum topics of Colonial Foundations, Expansion, Nationalism, and Sectionalism, Westward Movement and Industrialization. Includes sessions with Greene County Historian Jonathan Palmer, Museum Executive Director Maura O'Shea, and Museum Educators, on how to use tools of inquiry, visual analysis, and place-based learning with curriculum materials, including primary source texts, first-person accounts, paintings, and cultural reproductions. Teachers will receive a COLE200 anniversary lesson plan compatible with history, art, and science curriculum standards. Upon completion of the workshop, teachers can receive CTLE credits, provided by Questar III Boces.
Access Details:
The workshop is free but requires advance registration. Participants receive free museum access, workshop materials and lunch. The workshop will take place in person at the Thomas Cole National historic Site in Catskill, New York.
Sponsored by the Warner Foundation's Teaching American History Through Art project.