When a group of almost 200 students from Palmetto Elementary took a field trip to Pinecrest Gardens on a recent Friday, they were shown into a room filled with pieces that were imported from the Smithsonian Museum.
The museum’s traveling exhibit, titled “The Way We Worked,” was there to educate children about jobs and technology evolution through the years.
“It’s an exhibit about the way we work; about the way the United States became what it’s like today because of different jobs that people had,” said Ceil Fitts, educational program coordinator at Pinecrest Gardens.
Way We Worked,” focuses on the study of how work evolved into a fundamental element in America by highlighting the changes and transitions that occurred and ultimately impacted American jobs, technology and the workforce as a whole over the past 150 years.
It will be open to the public until Oct. 17.
The exhibit, borrowed from The Smithsonian Museum in Washington D.C., consists of individual panels titled “The Way We Worked,” “Why We Worked,” “How We Worked” and “Where We Worked.” Each is visually charged with collages of information such as historical images, videos, small informative paragraphs and interactive segments.
“It gives them another avenue for learning hands on, different than sitting in a classroom, reading from textbooks,” said Jenna Juan, a fifth-grade teacher at Palmetto Elementary.
Many of the panels focused on contrasting vintage labor equipment with modern used equipment.
One focused on the evolution of technology and telecommunications by exhibiting pieces used for writing throughout the years. Inside a clear box, the children could see a vintage, scratched, all-black typewriter next to a blue Blackberry mobile device.
For Joseph Baumer, 10, seeing the old and modern technology side-by-side was the coolest part.
“I like to see [the difference] between the first phone and the first Blackberry,” he said, pointing to the gadgets. “You also get to see the history of Pinecrest here. A lot of it was built by hand.”
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