De Hirsh Margules, Mother Ann Lighthouse, Eastern Point, Gloucester, 1946. Gouache on paper. Gift of Jean M. Horblit, 2002. [Acc. #2002.004.002]
Bring your students into a real‑world learning environment where curiosity leads the way. Our guided visits turn local art and history into hands‑on opportunities for critical thinking, collaboration, and a deeper sense of belonging.
Practice Critical Thinking Skills In our galleries, students practice critical thinking, engage with real artifacts, and discover how local history shapes who they are. Object based learning and guided discussions about history and culture open the door to learning about broader themes in history and social studies.
Strengthen Connections to Community Step beyond the classroom and into the stories of our community. Guided museum visits help students explore local art and history, strengthening their connection to place while building essential thinking skills together.
To schedule a visit please fill out the form below or call 978-283-0455 ext. 126 to speak with the Education Manager. You will receive a response back within 48 business hours. Please note: The Museum’s hours are Tuesday-Sunday.
Choose from One of Many Themes A theme‑based approach helps students connect objects and ideas in ways that enrich relevance and strengthen understanding across subject areas.
Align to Classroom Curriculum Students explore classroom topics through objects based learning to expand their knowledge of a topic.
Design Your Own Visit CAM Educators will work with you to build a tour that is customized to your classroom needs and interests.
You See, I See! (recommended PreK-3)
Children preschool to early elementary learn skills for looking at art to engage in meaningful conversation with lessons in making observations and comparing elements in art such as color, shape, line, emotion, and subject matter. Popular subjects for visits include color, pattern, people, animals, maritime history, lighthouses, places and objects.
Forms of Art (recommended PreK-3)
What is the difference between craft and fine art, painting and sculpture? What characteristics do each medium have and how does this help shape what we see? Students look at artists working in the tradition of Western art to explore what they draw, paint, and sculpt.
What’s in a Collection? (recommended Grade 4-8)
What do people collect and why? Students explore the practice of collecting from their own lives to communities; from objects to historical narratives and investigate ways Museums help create knowledge.
Museums in Community (Recommended Grade 6-8)
Students investigate the function of museums and their relationship to the communities they serve, then dive into conversation about how to envision museums of the future.
Contemporary Strategies (recommended grades 9-12)
Contemporary artists often pose new questions and inspire critical thinking by showing familiar ideas in new ways. Students look at the work of contemporary artists in the Museum’s collection as a starting off point for re-examining historical works.
Art in Bloom (recommended grades 1-12)
How do artists inspire us and add to our understanding of the natural world through their art? Students step into the shoes of nineteenth century naturalists with a look at an herbarium with specimens collected on Cape Ann in the Archive as well as artworks in the galleries inspired by local flowers and landscapes.
The Sea Serpent of Cape Ann (recommended grades 3-6)
Learn about the great unsolved mystery of the Sea Serpent of Cape Ann. Embedded in the Maritime histories of Gloucester and Manchester-by-the-Sea, students study primary sources to learn about the tale of the Sea Serpent and do some speculation of their own.
Exploring the Saltmarsh Through Art (recommended grades 4-12)
Saltmarshes have long been a subject of art on Cape Ann. Students compare some of these artworks to learn how to read a painting and gain insight into ways artists from different time periods have expressed their perspective of this vital but now endangered habitat.
Cape Ann’s Quarries (recommended grades 4-12)
What is a quarry? Why was the granite industry so important to this place? Students learn about the role natural resources played in the growth of the Cape Ann along with the histories of the granite industry in Gloucester and Rockport.
Symbols, Codes and Nautical Flags (recommended PreK-3)
How did sailors communicate to other ships before technologies such as radio or digital equipment? Students learn about the Maritime history of Cape Ann, the invention of schooners in Essex and Gloucester, and the use of nautical flags to send messages between ships comparing flags to other familiar symbols such as signs or the alphabet. Students invent flags as symbols to send their own messages.
The Folly Cove Designers (recommended grades 2-5)
Students study the Folly Cove Designers and read The Little House by Virginia Lee Burton Demetrios, to explore love of place, generosity, and resilience in a changing world. They learn to make their own block print.
Reading the Landscape (recommended grades 2-5)
Students compare a variety of landscape paintings and explore how themes including setting, mood, character, point of view are expressed in art.
Stories of Lighthouses (recommended grades 1-5)
Lighthouses have long been symbols of hope, welcome and illumination guiding mariners and their ships to safety. Students learn about lighthouses of Cape Ann, stories of lighthouse keepers and the Fresnel Lens which once sat atop the south tower of Thacher Island off the coast of Gloucester and Rockport.
Poetry and Art (recommended grades 2-12)
Students create an ekphrastic poem inspired by a work of art from the CAM Collection.
Tales from the Sea: Strong Breezes & Passing Clouds (recommended grades 4-12)
Students look at works by Diane KC whose art explores ideas about historical and personal narrative in mosaics made from shipwreck shards, Chinese export plates, family photos, log entries and excerpts from the 1838 ship’s log of Gloucester Captain Edward Babson and the 1838 diary of Amanda Babson, his wife.
Greek Myth in Art (recommended grades 5-12)
Students look at works of sculpture and painting with connections to Greek and Roman mythology. They learn how to identify classical references and ideas in modern and contemporary artworks.
Shaped by the Sea (recommended grades 4-12)
The lives of the people of Cape Ann have been deeply rooted in living by the sea: work, culture, tradition and daily life have been shaped by it. Students look to Cape Ann’s diverse and rich history with an eye towards its Maritime industries to understand the relationship between people and the places they live.
A Sense of Place
The Folly Cove Designers celebrated the world they experienced on Cape Ann through the subject matter of their prints. Students learn how artists can help create a sense of place and individual identity in their work.
Indigenous Histories and Culture, Then and Now
Learn about the wetu and mush8n at the CAM Green through the authentic voices of Mashpee Wampanoag educators.
Archeology: An Eye Into Cape Ann’s Past
This program includes an investigation of objects found on Cape Ann including Indigenous artifacts as well as fragments of household items found in the colonial settlements of Dogtown. Students learn about processes through which archeologists help shed light on peoples’ lives from long ago.
Exploring the Architecture of Cape Ann
Structures reveal stories as students look closely at historical architecture on Cape Ann. Examples include an Indigenous Wetu, First Period House, Captain’s home, and time in the 1950’s when Gloucester citizens debated, overcame challenges and ultimately saved the Fitz Henry Lane house for its cultural significance in the face of a powerful movement for urban renewal.
Cape Ann Women in the Arts
Students learn about women artists who lived and worked on Cape from early American itinerant painter Susannah Paine to nineteenth century sculptors Katherine Lane Weems and Anna Hyatt Huntington to contemporary artists working today.
African Americans in Essex County, Massachusetts, An Annotated Guide
In 2018 Dr. Kabria Baumgartner and Dr. Elizabeth Duclos-Orsello published their research into the hidden stories of African American in Essex County. In their words, “The central goal of this two-year, grant-funded project was to identify, locate, and compile the collections and resources, organizations, and individuals concerning the Black experience in Essex County.” Students study the guide and explore the Library and Archives at the Museum to put research strategies into practice.
Festivals on Cape Ann
Students learn about the many traditions celebrated in Cape Ann from the Portuguese crowing and Fiesta to Brazilian Independence Day and Juneteenth to understand how celebrations help create unity and space for connection.
Colonial Settlers on Cape Ann
CAM offers a unique opportunity for students to learn about colonial America and the American Revolution through the study of authentic artifacts. Bring this period alive through the study of objects such as a British red coat, pre- and post-Revolution art and craft, architecture and primary source documents. Students connect learning about the British settlement of North America and the American Revolution with real objects and local histories.
The White-Ellery House (CAM Green)
Students are invited to tour this First Period house where they learn about local colonial society and explore its structure and design. The grounds are a wonderful place for activities and a bagged lunch.
Gloucester’s Fitz Henry Lane: Luminism in a time of Transcendentalism
Gloucester artist Fitz Henry Lane is celebrated for his depictions of light-filled skies, accurate renderings of activity on Gloucester’s harbor and ships whose stories reveal complex histories. Students examine Lane’s life and work, with its connections to transcendentalism, Westward Expansion and local nineteenth century histories.
A Fishing Town: The growth of Cape Ann through the Industrial Revolution 1800-1900
Fish and Stone, Merchants and Sailors, Stores and Schools: Learn how the Industrial Revolution shaped the lives of people on Cape Ann in the nineteenth century and contributed to the nation’s growth during a time of westward expansion.
A New Deal for Artists: Cape Ann Art and the WPA
The Works Progress Administration and New Deal put some 8.5 million people in America to work including artists who lived or came to work on Cape Ann. Students view local works funded by the WPA to gain insight into this pivotal time in American History.
Early Twentieth Century: Cape Ann Art Colonies
Compare abstraction, surrealism, and expressionism through works by artists such as Stuart Davis, Edward Hopper, Helen Stein, Theresa Bernstein and other artists who contributed to the emergence of American Modernism. Compare the ideology of Modernism with strategies used by contemporary artists.
Community Portraits (recommended grades 6-12)
Whose portraits are made and displayed, who is missing? Students look at portraits in the CAM collections and learn to read between the lines to find missing stories.
Sculpting Sense of Self (recommended grades 2-5)
Students analyze the sculpture and memorials of Walker Hancock to understand the ways memorials speak to human experience and function in a society.
Stereoscope: Imagining a World
Technology can change what people see and how the world is imagined. Students learn about stereoscopes in 19th century society and the ways they helped people envision their world.ere
Winslow Homer and American Realism
American Realism celebrated the unique qualities and cultural richness of America through depictions of its landscape as well as the lives of ordinary people. Look at works by Cape Ann artists who followed in the tradition of realism and their pursuit of American themes in art.
Photojournalism in Community
Learn about the evolution of newspapers of Gloucester and discover Cape Ann as viewed through the lens of photographers who worked at The Gloucester Daily Times, 1973 – 2005. Students explore the role of photojournalism to document a community and shape a historical narrative of a place. ere
27 Pleasant Street
Gloucester, MA 01930
978-283-0455
Buy Tickets to visit the newly renovated Museum and the special exhibition Avery, Gottlieb & Rothko: By the Sea.
13 Poplar Street
Gloucester, MA 01930
Our CAM Green Campus is open seasonally beginning July 10th, Friday – Sunday.
