The Smithsonian Learning Lab is about discovery, creation, and sharing.
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The thrill of discovery awaits you in the Smithsonian Learning Lab. From the Discovery space shuttle to the Star Spangled Banner to dinosaur fossils, the Learning Lab gives everyone with a desire to learn the opportunity to explore the Smithsonian's rich resources anytime, anywhere.
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Create
Free your imagination – create personal collections using the Smithsonian's vast resources and add your own resources or those from other sources. Add notes, develop quizzes or create complete lessons or artistic collections, and build upon each for more personal and memorable learning.
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Quiz your students on the U.S. presidents; awe your friends with handpicked photographic art and share your personalized collections. Become part of a collaborative, global community of learners who are passionate about bringing to light new knowledge, ideas, and insight.
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Smithsonian Staff Picks
The Fantastic World of Nineteenth-Century Women’s Emotions: Two Literary Portrayals
Describing complex human emotions in words has challenged writers of every time in place. The feelings of rejected lovers are especially keen and make for engrossing stories. Two Victorian novelists, Charles Dickens and Rudyard Kipling, combined popular knowledge of science, literature, and religion to create powerful portraits of abandoned women. Although based more on cultural myths than human physiology, their depictions of Miss Havisham and the lady in the phantom rickshaw have had a powerful influence on representations of women’s emotions.
Civil War Diary: Homefront Perspectives
Nicole Gilbertson 
Horn Players
This is introductory information for Jean-Michel Basquiat's "Horn Players" from 1983.
This collection was created in conjunction with the National Portrait Gallery's 2017 Learning to Look Summer Teacher Institute.
TAGS: #NPGteach, portrait, learning to look, National Portrait Gallery, jazz, Gillespie, Charlie Parker, Basquiat, AP Art History
Stacey Horman 
Cultural Imagery and Stereotypes: The American Experience in the Classroom
This collection focuses on two works that deal with the issues of nationality, identity and the assimilation of cultures. Mel Casas's pun-laced Humanscape 62 combines elements familiar to many Americans: brownie desserts and a young Girl Scout (a Brownie), with traditional Mexican imagery. This pop art style-blend illustrates the Chicano experience to American culture and creates a push and pull narrative about Latino identity. Similarly, Roger Shimomura, an American-born artist of Japanese descent, contemplates repressed emotions from the time he and his family spent in World War II-era Japanese internment camps, following the attack on Pearl Harbor.
#APA2018
