Outreach Programs
Vulcan Park and Museum is committed to carrying its educational mission beyond the boundaries of the park, and to offering assistance to resource-challenged schools so that they all students in our region can enjoy the educational benefit of our programs.
Through our outreach programs, Vulcan Park and Museum travels to schools throughout the Birmingham area to share the story of the people and ideas that built our city.
Birmingham: A View of Ourselves
Student Digital Photography at Vulcan Park and Museum
Vulcan Park and Museum invites student photographers to submit digital images that capture the natural and architectural beauty of Birmingham. A number of these photographs will become part of Birmingham: A View of Ourselves and will be seen by thousands of schoolchildren and other visitors each year. Learn more about Birmingham: A View of Ourselves.
Vulcan Face to Face
[ Grades 2 - 5]
Vulcan Face to Face is a fun way to prepare students for their upcoming visit to Vulcan Park and Museum. Performed by Vulcan’s plush mascot “V” with support from a Vulcan Park and Museum education staff member, this interactive 20-minute classroom performance provides entertaining lessons on history, science, and art, excites students about future exploration of Vulcan and our region, and raises teacher awareness of how to effectively use Vulcan Park and Museum’s educational content to advance the Alabama Course of Study. Cost and availability varies.
Birmingham History on the Road
[ Grades 9 - 12 ]
The history of Birmingham extends far beyond Vulcan’s educational complex atop Red Mountain! Let us help you delve deeper into Birmingham’s colorful past through Birmingham History on the Road, Vulcan Park and Museum’s repertory of traveling musical and theatrical productions. In an effort to preserve some of Birmingham’s fascinating stories, we have commissioned four new productions – two musical, two theatrical – showcasing individuals who have made significant contributions and highlighting pivotal events from Birmingham’s past. Factual, entertaining, and loaded with ACOS-aligned content, these dynamic productions are an ideal way to inspire high school age students with the message that they, too, can impact the world.
Birmingham History on the Road productions last approximately one hour and can be presented in an auditorium or gym setting for large assemblies. Productions are offered in a limited number of performances on a first-come, first-served basis. Costs and availability vary with each production.
Crossing Lines
It’s 1938 and people from all over the country are coming to Birmingham for the inaugural meeting of the Southern Conference for Human Welfare. Crossing Lines introduces us to a fictional attendee, Eunice, who has come to Birmingham eager to support the causes of tolerance, education, and opportunity for all Southerners. While staying in a segregated hotel, Eunice strikes up a friendship with a down-to-earth bellboy named Pete, and she sparks within him a passion to change Birmingham into the city it was destined to become.
Crossing Lines reminds us that the city known as the birthplace of civil rights in the 1960s was also the cradle of the progressive movement in the South, a place where socialism and Jim Crow, the Old South and the New Deal, lived side by side. This theatrical performance was written by playwright Lee Shackleford.
Sun Ra: Musician, Poet, and Philosopher
Born in 1912, the jazz legend Sun Ra began his musical journey as Herman Blount, training at Birmingham Industrial High School under Fess Whatley. As the Afro-futurist philosopher and bandleader Sun Ra, he drew from the psychedelic movement, mysticism, bebop, and black liberation movement – yet Sun Ra is considered one of the most original musicians ever to perform.
Sun Ra: Musician, Poet, and Philosopher is presented by the Birmingham Seven. Led by saxophonist Daniel Western, the Birmingham Seven perform original transcriptions of numbers featured on Sun Ra’s classic album Magic City and other recordings by the man from Saturn.
Too Many Questions: An Evening with Virginia Durr
Born in Birmingham in 1903, Virginia Durr grew up immersed in the conventions of the segregated South. But Durr broke with tradition and became one of the country’s most passionate voices for civil rights and labor reform.
Too Many Questions: An Evening with Virginia Durr offers an intimate portrayal of Durr’s associations with Eleanor Roosevelt, Rosa Parks, and Justice Hugo Black, presented through a one-act, one-woman play based in part by Durr’s letters. Theatrical Performance written by Playwright Lee Shackleford and performed by local actress Ginny Loggins.
Symphonies and Spirituals: The Life and Music of William Levi Dawson
Most people know African-American composer and Anniston native William Dawson for his stirring arrangements of spirituals and his work directing the renowned Tuskegee Choir. But Dawson’s talent extended to the classical concert hall, as well. In the 1920s, Dawson’s Negro Folk Symphony placed him beside Duke Ellington and William Grant Still as a major musical figure of the Harlem Renaissance.
Symphonies and Spirituals: The Life and Music of William Levi Dawson features members of the Alabama Symphony Orchestra and the G.W. Carver Honor Choir performing Dawson’s classical works and spirituals in an engaging and interactive concert.
Grant Support
Thanks to the generosity of our funding partners, we are able to invite classrooms, primarily from underserved school districts, to participate in field trips at Vulcan Park and Museum at no or reduced cost. Funding for select schools is also available for our outreach programs. Opportunities for grant-supported field trips and outreach programs are limited. Please contact Outreach Coordinator Terry Wayne Marshall at tmarshall@visitvulcan.com to determine if your school is eligible.
