Discovery Kits

In addition to our Discovery Kits Online we continue to offer the original physical Discovery Kits as outreach materials that can be borrowed by area educators for use in the classroom. Kit contents vary but may include a teacher’s manual, slides, books, catalogues, copy prints, project supplies, articles, videocassettes, and artifacts. Kits must be reserved in advance and may be checked out for two weeks at a time. Teachers may use the Reading Room to review Discovery Kit contents if desired. Note: kits that are also available online feature a link to the virtual version

About George Eastman

The following kits feature different aspects of Mr. Eastman’s life and serve as excellent pre-visits to one of our docent-guided tours.

George Eastman: Father of Popular Photography

This biographical exploration of Rochester’s "first citizen" examines George Eastman in the context of his time. Included with this kit are glass plate negatives, a brownie camera, examples of film and slides that chronicle everything from Eastman’s childhood experiences to his legacy of philanthropy.

The Gardens and Grounds of George Eastman House

This kit provides an extensive look at George Eastman’s house and gardens and includes slides.

Inventors in Imaging Technologies

This kit profiles three influential innovators in the field of photographic imaging: George Eastman (popular photography), Thomas Edison (motion pictures), and Wilhelm Roentgen (X-ray photography).

For the Little Ones

Introduce younger students to photography and the museum experience.

The Picture Museum

Younger visitors to the Eastman House will learn what people do in museums by first making their own and then visiting ours! Teachers and students acquire, conserve, interpret, and exhibit artifacts (personal pictures brought from home) as a collection.

A William Wegman Primer

Educators can use photographer William Wegman’s playful pictures of his Weimeraner dogs to strengthen observational skills and promote visual literacy.

Photographic Activity Kits

Recreate in your classroom the experience of attending a Discovery Room Session. Select from the following kits for a fun and interactive photography activity.

Animation: Illusion of Motion

Explore the principles of "persistence of vision" and "illusion of motion." Pre-cinema animation parlor amusements are used to reveal the demand for, and principles of, animated photographic illusions. Students will learn to make their own zoetropes, phenakistoscopes, and flip books—all of which eventually led to the development of modern motion pictures.

Pinhole Photography

Students will learn how to make their own cameras and "shutters" from found objects while learning about the science of light and the art of the pinhole camera. They can explore pinhole optics and "tricks" with the informative guide.

Photograms (Sunprints)

This kit allows students to discover one of the first experimental photographic processes by making their own "sunprints" (cyanotypes) with daylight, water, and light-sensitive paper. This is a non-toxic process and a challenging activity for all ages. The kit includes everything students will need to create sunprints in the classroom, including plastic trays, Plexiglas, and sunprint paper. Students can collect small objects from home or the classroom to use as "negatives."

History Through Photography

The following kits address different time periods in U.S. history and can be integrated into the classroom for history, social studies, and global issues.

African Americans: Black History through Photography

Tracing the history of African Americans from the very early days of photography into the twentieth century this kit provides insight into a rich visual history.

Appeal to This Age: Images of the Civil Rights Movement

This kit investigates the photo documentation of the Civil Rights Movement as well as the life and work of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and includes a teacher’s manual, books, copy prints, videos, and a workbook.

Beyond the Image: Depicting Native Americans

Featuring historic images of Native Americans by Edward S. Curtis, by photographers in the Eastman House photography collection, and by contemporary Native American artists. Traces the role that photography has played in the shaping and continuation of Native American stereotypes.

Bringing the War Home: American Photography during WWII

This kit is pulled from the museum's collection of original wartime prints made for issue to the press — often heavily censored.

The Civil War through Photography

This kit examines the famous images made by Brady, Gardner, and O'Sullivan during the Civil War along with other photographs made during this turbulent period.

Gordon Parks: Half Past Autumn

This kit features images spanning over 50 years from this African American Renaissance man, from his work for the FSA, to his famous photo essays for Life magazine, to his contemporary photographs. His subjects range from pressing social issues such as poverty, segregation, and crime to high fashion, landscapes, and, most recently, color abstractions.

Lewis Hine: Immigration and the Progressive Era

Hine's landmark work documented Ellis Island immigrants, child labor, tenement conditions, and American working men and women in the early twentieth century. Students are taught to "read" the details in Hine's photographs and apply the exercise to modern photographic imagery.

Photographers of the American West

Explore the American West as recorded by photographers William Henry Jackson, Timothy O'Sullivan, and Alexander Gardner. See examples of the once popular 3D stereoviews and learn how wet-plate photography made these pictures even more remarkable.

Photographs of the Great Depression

This kit provides a look at the famous FSA photographs that shaped our image of America in the 1930s. The images illustrate how photography served as a catalyst to achieve social change. Featuring artists such as Dorothea Lange, Walker Evans, and Arthur Rothstein, all known as social documentary photographers.

Points of Entry

This kit examines photography’s role in documenting immigration and the complex experience of immigrants in the United States. Teachers are encouraged to guide students through exercises in looking at and deriving information from images included in all three parts: A Nation of Strangers, Tracing Cultures, and Reframing America.

Requiem: Photojournalists who died in Vietnam and Indochina

Requiem memorializes 135 photographers who died in Indochina and Vietnam between 1950 and 1975. This kit includes images from both sides of the war—many of them seldom seen in the West.

Sebastião Salgado: Migrations, Humanity in Transition

This kit contains extensive information from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, and addresses cultural awareness issues regarding mass migration. A special unit on "The Changing Faces of Rochester" outlines the way migration has influenced Rochester throughout its history.

Sebastiao Salgado: Workers, An Archaeology of the Industrial Age

A presentation of powerful images of the world’s manual laborers, this kit contains a teacher’s manual with supporting information to the exhibition, exhibition catalogue, video, and slides. It is an excellent companion to the Lewis Hine kit in illustrating people at work.

Shapes & Shelters: Architecture and Photography

This kit provides a photographic look at geometric shapes in architectural structures throughout the world and history. Students learn to deconstruct photographs for compositional elements and recognize these shapes around them every day.

Steve McCurry: Face of Asia

This kit features award-winning photojournalist Steve McCurry’s striking color images from Afghanistan, India, Cambodia, and Tibet, plus a section on his iconic "Afghan Girl" National Geographic cover photograph.

Reserve a Kit

Kits are free of charge and can be checked out for two weeks at a time. To reserve a kit call (585) 271-3361 ext. 292.