EDUCATIONAL PROGRAMS

Education lies at the heart of any museum. We can offer

Childrens' and adults' guides to the museum
Children's "hands-on" tours
Curator-led tours of special exhibits
Field trips to sites of historical interests (by arrangement)
Community tour of a vintage train (by arrangement)
Historical presentations

Montana

RAILS ACROSS THE ROCKIES

The Livingston Depot Center can present a tour program for the students of Park County and the surrounding Montana school districts, offering students informative, thought-provoking, and fun field trips into our Montana past, conducted in the atmosphere of Livingston's beautiful and historic Northern Pacific railroad station. Each tour has been designed to meet the needs of your grade level, in accordance with state and district guidelines. The tours are informal, flexible, and can be tailored to meet the special needs of your class - just let us know.

This year's exhibit features "Rails Across the Rockies: A Century of People and Places", which tells the story of railroading in the Pacific Northwest, as well as others -- see our Exhibits link above. The exhibition uses art, photography, historical objects, and railroad memorabilia to tell the story of laying the rails and of westward expansion.

K-5 TOUR PROGRAM (by special arrangement)

A guide in authentic railroad costume conducts all tours. The emphasis in our programs is "hands-on" learning, where students see, touch and hear about the various displays. Your guide will follow an interactive format, asking students questions related to the displays they encounter, as well as encouraging students to frame their own questions as they move through the exhibit.

Kindergarten through Second Grade Tour - "ALL ABOARD!"
Participants in this tour will learn about all aspects of travel by railroad, including boarding the train, and eating and sleeping along the way. They will see how rail travel across America changed over time, and how it compares to other modes of transportation. This tour emphasizes the people who make up the railroad. Students will learn about railroad workers and folk heroes, including those who built the lines, those who operated the trains, and those who maintained the equipment. In addition, they will have the opportunity to handle the controls in an engine cab display and to send and receive a telegraph message.
Third through Fifth Grade Tour - "BUILDING RAILS ACROSS THE ROCKIES"
Participants on this tour will learn how their predecessors carved a steel-clad trail through the rugged Rocky Mountains. Emphasis will be on how workers from far-flung corners of the world converged on western North America to accomplish one of the greatest engineering feats in history. They will meet a variety of historic figures from Chinese immigrants to homegrown "barons" and see how, over the years, the railroad provided windows of opportunities for women, minorities, and immigrants. In addition, they will learn some of the "nuts and bolts" operations of running the railroad, including a chance to use Morse Code on an original telegraph key and a brief lesson on the operation of a modern diesel locomotive from the engineer's seat.

Montana

BOOKING YOUR TOUR

Guided tours are available for student groups of ten or more. Guided tours must be scheduled in advance. Please call the Depot Center office at (406) 222-230, to schedule a tour or to receive more information. The museum's guided tours are free to Park County student groups, if the visit is being incorporated into the children's school curriculum. However, the Depot Center museum is a non-profit organization that is not funded by any government organization. We would appreciate a small donation to help with our operating costs.

For other youth organizations, such as daycare centers and scouting groups, and school groups outside of Park County, the cost for a museum tour is $1.00 per child for a minimum group of 10.

The Depot Center is open for guided tours Monday through Saturday, 9:00 am to 5:00 pm and Sundays 1:00 pm to 5:00 pm.

The Livingston Depot Center Museum closes for the season in late September, so book your students on a fun-filled tour of Montana's colorful past today. All aboard!

OTHER ATTRACTIONS

Depot Rotary Park, adjacent to the Depot is perfect for picnics. The Depot Gift Shop is full of reasonably priced gift ideas -- including items under a dollar for young shoppers. And the Depot isn't the only museum in town -- don't miss these other museums:
Yellowstone Gateway Museum of Park County at 118 W. Chinook St. and
The International Fly Fishing Center at 215 E. Lewis St.,
just short distances away!

For more information, contact the
Livingston Depot Center
P.O. Box 1319
Livingston, Montana 59047
Phone: (406) 222-2300

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	THE LIVINGSTON DEPOT CENTER The Livingston Depot Foundation is a non-profit organization committed to enriching the lives of residents of Livingston and surrounding, communities, and tourists to the Yellowstone area by (1) restoring, preserving and protecting the historic Northern Pacific depot, now a community cultural center--The Livingston Depot Center; (2) presenting and promoting the visual and performing arts, culture, history of the Yellowstone Region, and educational programs in the arts and humanities; and (3) promoting community involvement, tourism and economic development through the operation and use of the Livingston Depot Center. Please send comments and corrections to: depot@ycsi.net ©2003 The Livingston Depot Center, Livingston Montana