From Silk Roads to City Streets: Exploring Migration Through Artifact Inquiry

Join us at the Field Museum on Saturday, October 4, 2025, from 10am-2pm for a professional learning opportunity designed to engage educators in deep content learning with the Museum’s collections, with particular emphasis on the Cyrus Tang Hall of China. This program will support educators in their teaching of cultures and religious traditions in both historical and contemporary contexts.

With these contemporary connections, the session also will help educators bring Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander (AANHPI) narratives into their classrooms. This workshop will include content and practical strategies to meet the requirements of the TEAACH Act.

Together, we will explore the questions:

• In what ways do images and objects act as "texts" that tell stories about how people live, think, and interact with their environment and each other?
• What does it mean to be culturally responsive in our inquiry, and how do the questions we ask shape the stories we tell about the past and present?
• Why do people move from one place to another, and how have those reasons changed or stayed the same over time?
• What can the study of ancient and modern travel teach us about connection, exchange, and adaptation?
• In what ways are historical patterns of Chinese migration reflected in contemporary immigration experiences?

Participants will:

• Think like an anthropologist by exploring how images and objects can serve as primary sources for learning about people, patterns, and culture.
• Practice developing a culturally responsive C3 inquiry arc.
• Make connections between migration patterns in ancient China and Chinese immigration to the United States.
• Preview two brand-new Field Museum educator toolkits centering Chinese American immigration stories!