The Leventhal Map & Education Center offers a menu of pre-designed programs for field trips to our Learning Center, virtual class visits, or in-person outreach to classrooms. Using maps from our collection, students practice using cartographic tools to read maps and think about what maps can and can’t tell us about our relationships to places in the past and present. Programs related to our current exhibition are also available. Explore our program topics below. If you don’t see quite what you’re looking for, we are happy to work with you to create programming that works with your curriculum.
Booking a Program
A limited number of guided tours of our current exhibitions are available for school groups. These experiences will draw connections between the work in your classroom and what is currently on view.
Due to the size of our gallery, we can welcome groups of up to 16 students and 2 chaperones. You can preview availability and express interest using Calendly. We will confirm your visit and discuss how we can best gear the conversation to meet your curricular goals.
Guided tours of our current exhibitions are 45-60 minutes. We utilize guided inquiry to encourage close looking and to support your desired curricular connections. Please note that there is no designated lunch room for classes in the Boston Public Library.
Cost
Please see our table of education program fees for information on costs. We strive to make our programs and resources available to all institutions without cost presenting a barrier.
Additional BPL Programming for Class Visits
A visit to the Map Center can be combined with sessions conducted by BPL’s Teen Services Team in Teen Central (grades 6-12), or activities with its Children’s Library Team (grades K-5). Click here to learn more about Teen Central’s tours, research skills workshops and team-building activities, or click here to discover the range of Children’s Library services provided at Central.
Expanded Programming in 2024–2025
This summer we will announce our updated offerings for the 2024–25 school year. We encourage you to sign up for our newsletter to receive first notice of the opportunities for your students to connect with the Leventhal Center.
Pre-Designed K-12 Programming
What Is A Map?
Grades 1–3
Students practice how to interpret maps by reading the stories being told by mapmakers. Students create a map of their own, receive a short interactive lesson about maps and mapping, and work in small groups to answer questions about some of the maps in our collection.Download lesson to teach it yourself
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People Shape the Earth/The Earth Shapes People
Grades 2-5
After an introductory lesson on maps and mapping, students work together to consider the ways we shape the environment and the ways it shapes us by examining regional maps of the United States.
Mapping the American Revolution
Grades 3-12
Students learn to interpret the stories of the American Revolution as told through maps. In small groups, they examine period maps of Boston and New England to uncover information about the historical actors in the Revolution, the significance of geography, and the motives of the mapmakers.Download lesson to teach it yourself
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Mapping America
Grades 3-8
Students learn the basics of mapmaking and the many ways maps tell stories before breaking into small groups to explore a range of maps of the United States, from some of the oldest in our collection to the present. This lesson can emphasize different themes: 1) Students interact with regional maps that tell stories about the expansion of the United States across the continent or that illustrate regional characteristics, or 2) Students explore different thematic maps of the United States to consider a mapmaker’s purpose.
Native People and Settler Colonialism/A Story of Land and Maps
Grades 4-12
Students learn the basics of mapmaking and explore maps made by Indigenous and Euro-American cartographers to uncover Native presence and the dispossession of Native lands.Download lesson to teach it yourself
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Boston Over Time
Grades 5-12
In this program, students use maps to discover how Boston’s landscape has been transformed over the course of its history. In a hands-on activity, students will examine maps spanning the past four hundred years to better understand how Boston has changed in tandem with its population and industry.
World Maps Over Time
Grades 6-8
Students practice being critical map readers using a range of world maps, from the oldest in our collection to the present. After an interactive lesson on map projections, students work in small groups to analyze what mapmakers include on their maps and why.Download lesson to teach it yourself
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Civics Topics
Grade 8
We will work with you to support your Civics curriculum with map-based lessons on topics, from red-lining to immigration to Boston-based neighborhood advocacy.