K-12 Learning
Plan Your Visit to Deschutes Historical Museum
Education Tours & Programs
Our mission at the museum is to preserve, promote and celebrate our local history. From classroom visits to museum field trips, walking tours to scavenger hunts, we love to collaborate. The Deschutes Historical Museum offers a variety of resources and programming to support K-12 educators.
- On-site exhibits explore community themes incorporating individuals, Deschutes County, and the state of Oregon.
- Bring the Deschutes Historical Museum experience to your classroom! Classroom visits are designed to work with curriculum and with the available class time.
- Teachers and students working on class projects and/or curriculum-based research have access to the museum’s research library.
Have your own idea for a classroom visit program or offsite history experience? We are here to help. You can email info@deschuteshistory.org to ask our knowledgeable team about differnt opportunities for K-12 educators and learners.
In the Classroom With You: Curriculum Offerings
In partnership with OSU Cascades Master of Teaching program, the Deschutes County Historical Society offers the following standards based curriculum activities for social science instruction using local history. Check back periodically for new lessons.
Black Homesteaders in Deschutes County
Meet Clarence and Ophelia Phelps, who homesteaded in the Tumalo area in 1917. Ophelia became the first person of color elected to a public office when she was elected to the Cloverdale School Board in 1922.
Phelps Family Lesson Doc A, Johnson 3.2025
Anti Japanese Sentiment in the 1920s
In the 1920s, George Shima, the “Potato King of California”, purchased land in Terrebonne to expand his potato production into Central Oregon. He was met with racism and threats that ultimately pushed him out of Central Oregon.
George Shima Bend Bulletin article