School Group tours
The Clark’s permanent collection and exhibitions connect with many areas of study across all ages. All of our gallery tours enhance student learning by helping them develop and exercise critical and creative thinking skills. Our approach involves in-depth conversation and engagement around a few works of art rather than a broad overview covering many objects. You can choose from individually tailored thematic tours, unique signature tours, or, when available, exhibition tours. School group tours last approximately one hour, more if the visit is part of a signature tour.
To book a visit that includes a tour, please fill out our School Group Visit Request form. If you have any questions, please contact our Department Coordinator, Lily McGartland, by phone 413 458 0563 or email.
thematic tours
Thematic tours are drawn from the Clark’s permanent collection and can support many areas of the curriculum for all ages and grades. Engaging with art encourages greater understanding of the human experiential dimension of any subject. We work with teachers to plan each thematic tour to meet the learning goals for the visit.
exploring art [all grades]
This tour is designed to share the joys and value of engaging with art. Students will be introduced to a variety of works in the collection and will learn how to think about and talk about art in general. More experienced art classes can focus on particular concepts or ideas that they may be studying. All students will consider how the arts can enrich human understanding.
art and the language arts [all grades]
Students at all grade levels can use works of art to explore different types of writing. Some works of art illustrate specific narratives or relate directly to mythology, literature, and poetry, while others may offer excellent starting points for students to create their own stories, essays, or poems. Looking at art offers a wonderful opportunity to think about people—the artists, the subjects in their pictures, and ourselves—and to gather inspiration for creative or expository writing. Writing activities for students may be incorporated into a gallery tour or independent writing time can be organized before or after a tour.
art and society [all grades]
Works of art reflect the period in which they were made and can be used as evidence of how people lived and thought about life in different places and times. While the Clark’s collection is not encyclopedic, it relates to many different cultures, historical periods, and human concerns both universal and idiosyncratic. Younger grades can focus on general themes such as families, communities, diversity, and conceptual ideas like change. For older students, a tour can be shaped to explore systems of belief, cultural values, assumptions, and even bias.
french art and culture [all grades]
The Clark is famous for its collection of French Art from the 18th and 19th centuries. French Art and Culture gallery tours will focus on these works, France’s central position in Western art, and the rapid and radical changes in French and European society during this time period.
For French language students, the Clark offers complementary French-language Looking Carefully Cards (Regarder Attentivement), for a self-guided tour. Looking Carefully Cards highlight art works in the Clark’s permanent collection (many of which are French) and encourage students to pay close attention. When you book your visit, speak to Lily McGartland, the Education Department Coordinator, to learn more about this option.
identity and the united states [all grades]
Art often conveys personal or national identities and can illustrate particular social customs. The Clark’s Henry Morris and Elizabeth H. Burrows Gallery and Lauzon Glass Study Gallery feature silver, glass objects, furnishings, and portraiture from Colonial America and the Federalist period. Along with paintings in the permanent collection galleries, these displays help students consider what life was like in the early days of the United States and reveal evolving ideas about national identity.
landscape at the Clark [all grades]
Inspired by our 140-acre campus as well as our collection, this theme examines the relationship between art and nature at the Clark. This tour can connect to a variety of classroom topics and curricula—from a philosophical and contemplative query exploring the relationship between human beings and the larger natural world, to an examination of the tradition of landscape painting, to a focus on specific STEAM learning objectives.
exhibition tours
wall power! [all grades]
This tour explores the art of tapestry and the collaborative design process that involves artists, dyers, and weavers. Many of the wall hangings in this exhibition depict plants and animals in the natural world, including wolves, butterflies, and snakes. These monumental tapestries offer a unique opportunity to investigate relationships between plants and animals, and their environments, and to examine ecological issues through close looking and active discussion. This exhibition tour connects to life science and visual arts learning standards. Available January 7–March 7, 2025.
signature tours
The Clark’s signature tours are designed to demonstrate the power and joy of engaging with art and nature, and their ability to offer important perspectives on human dynamics. Our signature tours are rooted in our philosophy that engaging with both art and nature can enhance people’s lives, both at an individual and at the community level.
sensing nature at the Clark [all grades]
Sensing Nature at the Clark encourages students to engage meaningfully with landscape on the Clark’s campus and in the galleries. This signature tour offers students a chance to slow down and pay attention to their surroundings and introduces them to the habits of mindfulness and to trusting their own abilities to make sense of the world around them.
A Sensing Nature signature tour begins outside with a short walk in the woods designed to heighten students’ awareness of the natural environment, followed by a contemplative art-looking experience in the galleries. Students will use their time in nature as a lens to connect with artworks in the permanent collection. This signature tour can link to many learning standards, including Art, ELA, STEAM, and SEL.
welcome to the museum! [Preschool–1]
Welcome to the Museum! introduces very young students to the Clark and encourages a life-long appreciation of museums and the joys of engaging with art. Children will consider what a museum is all about, they will learn about the different jobs that people have at museums, and they will be introduced to the Clark’s galleries and some of the artworks in our permanent collection.
An art-making activity, as well as pre- and post-visit activities, designed to encourage creativity and careful looking, are included free of charge to enhance the experience for both students and teachers. Please plan for an hour and a half for this signature tour.
curating a culture of respect [Upper Elementary–Grade 12]
Curating a Culture of Respect (CCR) engages students with art as a vehicle to think about what it means to be a human being and to cultivate a sense of respect for others, community, the world, and above all, respect for themselves. This signature tour encourages students to trust and learn from their own experience and to consider that they have the ability to make choices that center care and respect in their day-to-day lives. We recommend CCR as a full-grade experience as the focus can help set a culture of shared respect.
A complementary art-making activity can be included as part of a CCR tour. Plan for at least two hours for this signature gallery tour and art-making activity.
disruption and emergence [grades 6–12 ]
Though change is a part of life, some periods are more volatile than others. Youth today face an uncertain world unfolding around them. The COVID-19 pandemic interrupted their studies, their lives, and their social patterns. Major shifts and trends—internationally, nationally, and locally—in spheres from the political to the personal, are rocking the way youth see the world, themselves, and the future. This tour offers students a chance to consider the fact of change—individual change, collective change, and social change—and the opportunity to process their own experiences over the past few years by engaging with art. This signature gallery tour focuses on artworks that represent various kinds of change and disruption, as well as those that reflect the ways that people have dealt with and emerged from challenging times.
Complementary writing and art-making can be included with this signature tour, as part of your visit to the museum or to bring back to your classroom. When you book your visit, speak to Lily McGartland, the Education Department Coordinator, to learn more about this option.