AMST 205

Material Aspects of American Life

PROJECT SIX

Virtual Greenbelt Exhibit

Final Draft Due Tuesday, December 9, 1997

Your final project is to construct an exhibit for Virtual Greenbelt. Virtual Greenbelt is a Web site based on the Greenbelt Museum in Greenbelt, Maryland. It was begun by the AMST 205 class in the fall of 1995 and has been added to by students in four other classes as well as faculty and graduate students in the American Studies Department. Excellent projects from this class will be added to the permanent collection.

Your exhibit may be either artifact centered or theme centered. You may choose an artifact or group of artifacts and use the Fleming model to write labels for your exhibit. Or, you may choose a theme and choose artifacts in the museum and elsewhere to illustrate your exhibit. You are expected to apply the field analysis techniques and the computer skills learned during the semester to present your conclusions in a formal manner.


You are expected to use primary documents to provide information about your artifacts and to support your themes. The Tugwell Room in the Greenbelt Public Library has a wide variety of material about Greenbelt, including copies of local newspapers, photographs, and books. The Maryland Room at the McKeldin Library on campus may also provide useful information. Catalogs, newspapers and magazines of the period are other useful sources. Don't forget the readings that have been assigned this term as secondary sources for your work.

Please note, you may find some material available on the Internet through collector's web sites or company sites. But do not rely entirely on the Internet for the documentation of your project. See the Resources page on the electronic syllabus for information about citing web sites.

You may also interview family members or community residents who can tell you about the use of artifacts during the period 1937-1945. Be sure to document your exhibit with endnotes that cite your sources.

Think of your exhibit as part of the larger Virtual Greenbelt and link it to three other student projects, both from this class and those that are already part of VG. If a Web visitor is interested in the subject of your exhibit, where should he or she go to find out more related information? Don't just say "see Susy's exhibit on doll house furniture," but work the link into your exhibit without using authors' names.



Grading

This exhibit is worth 25% of your grade for the term.

The FIRST DRAFT of your exhibit is due on Tuesday, December 2 by class time and will count for 10 points of your grade. You should have a substantial portion of your exhibit completed at this time. We will discuss each project and you will have the opportunity to revise and re-work your exhibit based on comments and suggestions that you receive in class and on your draft copy the following class session.

The Final version of your exhibit is due on Tuesday, December 9. It should include three links to other student projects as well as appropriate background and images. Be sure to acknowledge your sources in endnotes, and provide a bibliography of the works that you consulted. Projects with more than three spelling errors or typos will lose points.

This may be an individual or a team effort. You may form curatorial teams of two or three people, but your exhibit should then reflect the work of several people, either in more breadth or more depth than the exhibit of an individual. Curatorial teams may choose to receive the grade of the project, or members may choose to receive individual grades based upon each person's contribution.



STUDENT PROJECTS

vj01 - Women's Recreation
vj02 - Wall Decorations
vj03 - Child's Bed
vj04 - Music
vj06 - Microscope
vj07 - Telephone
vj08 - Women's Shoes
vj09 - Books
vj11 - Milk Delivery
vj12 - Women's Club
vj13 - Disney
vj14 - Card Games
vj15 - Garage
vj20 - Movies
vj21 - Gardening
vj22 - Life Magazine
vj23 - Auto Repair
vj24 - Floor Coverings
vj25 - Canning
vj26 - Body Building
vj27 - Baseball Bat
vj29 - Ice Skates
vj30 - Holidays
vj31 -


RETURN to AMST205 Syllabus