Enhance your curriculum with fresh new ideas and integrate the Museum into your classroom. Our exciting workshops combine historical content with innovative classroom applications. Each workshop includes lesson plans and activities for use in the classroom, tours of the Museum galleries, and presentations related to the art in the Museum.

Workshops are open to all teachers, but enrollment is limited. Most workshops are free for teachers in the Birmingham, Jefferson County, Vestavia, Mountain Brook, and Hoover school systems. $15 for all other teachers.

Register today!

Inservice Credits Available for FREE Lectures

We also offer Inservice credit for many of our FREE public lectures.  You must pre-register so that CEU certificates can be created.  In order to receive credit, one must be present at the end of the lecture to receive forms.  Forms will not be mailed.

Learn about the many ways art can connect to your curriculum by attending a teacher workshop at your school or in the Museum on a professional workday. We will customize a workshop for you and your fellow teachers. It could include gallery and exhibition tours, teaching demos, group discussion, art and language arts workshops. Minimum of 10 teachers. Contact Suzy Harris, Associate Curator of Education, at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it or 205.254.2668.

Saturday, March 10, 2012
8am - 1pm

For more than sixty years, Norman Rockwell’s paintings captured ordinary and extraordinary moments in American life. Learn more about his life and work and how to incorporate his work into your language arts, social studies, math and science curricula.

CLICK HERE TO REGISTER NOW!

POSTPONED - Check back for new date!

Look at how artists have used words to inform and inspire their work. Art can be used to improve your students reading and writing skills. Discover new ways to enhance your students’ writing abilities and ignite your language arts lessons.

Friday, June 15 and Saturday, June 16, 2012
(plus optional Thursday evening event)

This teacher institute will closely explore the United States’ gradual shift from an agrarian to industrial society, and how that change is reflected in American art. The Birmingham Museum of Art is fortunate to have a key masterpiece from its permanent collection—Albert Bierstadt’s Looking Down Yosemite Valley, California (1865)—chosen for inclusion in the Picturing America program. An in-depth exploration of this painting will provide a framework for our discussion of concepts of the American wilderness and the frontier and America’s transition from an agricultural to an industrial society. This workshop is open to 50 teachers by application only. All applicants must work in a school or home school that obtained a copy of the Picturing America Portfolio. Contact Suzy Harris, Associate Curator of Education, at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it or 205.254.2668 for more information.

Benefits of Participation:

• See nationally recognized scholars
• Visit area historic sites
• Witness an iron pour and create your own iron artwork
• Learn new ways to teach with art and to incorporate humanities themes in lessons
• Receive Certificate of attendance and conference materials
• $300 stipend to help defray the costs of participation

Who is eligible to apply? Teachers (public, private, and homeschool) with access to the Picturing America poster gallery through their school are eligible to apply. Please see attached list at the bottom of this page. Teachers must commit to attending both conference days.

Deadline to Apply: To be considered, all applications must be postmarked by April 4, 2012. The application form is attached at the bottom of the page.

We anticipate high interest in this competitive program. Interested applicants should indicate their intent to apply, via email to the Suzy Harris at  This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it as soon as possible. Type Interested in Picturing America in the subject line.

This conference is supported by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities. Any views, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this conference do not necessarily reflect those of the National Endowment for the Humanities.

About Picturing America 

Great art speaks powerfully, inspires fresh thinking, and connects us to our past…

The nation’s artistic heritage—our paintings, sculpture, architecture, fine crafts, and photography—offers unique insights into the character, ideals, and aspirations of our country. Picturing America, a far-reaching new program from the National Endowment for the Humanities in cooperation with the American Library Association, brings this vital heritage to all Americans.

By bringing high-quality reproductions of notable American art into public and private schools, libraries, and communities, Picturing America gives participants the opportunity to learn about our nation’s history and culture in a fresh and engaging way. The program uses art as a catalyst for the study of America—the cultural, political, and historical threads woven into our nation’s fabric over time….

About Picturing America from Humanities, September/October 2007, Volume 28/Number 5