Museum Tours, Outreach, & Field Trips
What is open for booking: Guided group tours of the museum remain available and may be requested by calling the museum front desk.
Field Trip Scheduling Update: While guided group tours remain available, we are temporarily unable to schedule educational field trips or facilitated student programs through July due to a staffing transition. Field trips require significant planning and preparation, and our current staff are focused on maintaining museum operations and visitor services while we onboard a new Visitor Experience & Programs Manager.
We encourage schools and community groups to submit inquiries through our contact page, and we look forward to resuming field trip scheduling later this summer. Thank you for your patience and understanding.
Fourth Grade Indigenous Education Program
The 4th Grade Indian Education Program was developed as a collaborative effort between the Coquille Indian Tribe, the Confederated Tribes of the Coos, Lower Umpqua, and Siuslaw Indians, and the Coos History Museum. It aims to familiarize students with regional history, the museum, and local sites of historical significance to Native people. The program consists of three parts delivered in three separate occasions. The first part is delivered in the classroom by teachers using Shared History/Tribal History Curriculum, to introduce the concepts and materials that will be emphasized later in the field trips that follow. The museum visit uses the collections and staff expertise, to illuminate local history of the first inhabitants of our area. The final part of the program takes place at the Coquille Plankhouse, where staff from the Tribes share local historical and contemporary culture.
 In keeping with the growing demand for K-12 and museum education; to strive for a more equitable, decolonizing lens, the 4th grade program focuses on the history, and contemporary cultures of the Coquille Indian Tribe, and the Confederated Tribes of the Coos, Lower Umpqua, and Siuslaw Indians. This program aims to provide students with the multiple perspectives, and shared histories of the area. This program received an Excellence Award from the Oregon Heritage Commission in 2008 and we continue to share, and evolve its contents with educators across our state striving to reach similar goals of a more accurate and inclusive history education.
Our program incorporates diverse perspectives, and encourages analytical thinking. We hope to engage students in the processes of critical thinking, that are crucial to historical research. Our goal is to supplement the great work already being done by local teachers, by aligning our concepts and materials to the Oregon State Content Standards.
Please note: The Tribal History/Shared History 4th-grade program is only available to 4th graders. Schools will be contacted in the Fall about booking museums and plankhouse visits in February and March of the following year.
[1] Shared History/Tribal History (aka SB 13 Curriculum)
Coquille Curriculum: Website Currently Under Construction
CTCLUSI Curriculum: https://ctclusi.org/abundance-storymap/
We are excited to help prepare Coos County and surrounding districts for this new curriculum. Click the image above to reach the Oregon.gov site, which elaborates more on what this bill means for Oregon schools, as well as linking webinars detailing curriculum for teachers.
