Explore the history of Wisconsin from the end of the last Ice age to the creation of the state. Discover the early history of the First Peoples of Wisconsin; encounter the Fur Trade; dig through our lead mining past; and learn the lore of the lumberjacks as we burrow into Badger history through hands-on exploration of images and artifacts from our collections.    

Hands-On History brings the objects of the past directly to Wisconsin's students through hour-long, interactive sessions. Engaging with the objects in much the same way as historians and archaeologists do, students draw conclusions on their own by asking these 3 main questions:

  •What can we learn from objects?

 •What questions do we ask?

 •How do objects help to tell the story of the past?