We are pleased to offer FREE outreach programs to schools and youth groups throughout Kentucky and Southern Indiana.
All schools in the following counties:
Programs are age-appropriate and address Kentucky Academic Standards. For detailed information on programs and standards connections, select from the current available programs listed below. Each program session lasts 45 minutes unless noted otherwise.
The Kentucky Derby Museum’s education department is supported by the Kentucky Derby Museum Gala.
Contact Mollie Gilin, Outreach Coordinator, at (502) 992-5911 or mgilin@derbymuseum.org with questions or to schedule an outreach visit.
"The Kentucky Derby Museum presentations captured our students completely! Sharing the Kentucky Derby history with our students allowed them to make real life connections. We were so impressed! The presentations were so age-appropriate and interesting! We can't wait till next year! We love the Kentucky Derby Museum, and their educator, Mollie Gilin, was fantastic. She knew her stuff! She was great with the kids and staff! My rating is 5 STARS!!"
- Amy Bouchard, Physical Education Teacher at Meadow Lands Elementary School
Arts and Humanities | Math | Science | Science/Practical Living | Social Studies
Horse Tales (PK-2) ARTS AND HUMANITIES
Program Summary: Horses take center stage as your students participate in age appropriate stories featuring both fictional and nonfictional horses. We will explore the different elements that make up a story, as well as other early reading strategies.
Program Goals: Students understand the importance and fun of reading while strengthening basic reading skills. They understand some basic elements of Thoroughbred racing.
Racing Colors (PK-1) MATH
Program Summary: Jockeys silks are filled with many shapes and colors, and we will identify a variety of them in this engaging look into the riders who compete in the Kentucky Derby. We’ll also learn about jockey safety equipment before designing our own class jockey silks.
Program Goals: Students understand we commonly use shapes and colors to communicate and identify things around us; that owners design jockey silks as a unique combination of shapes and colors. They will be able to use shapes and colors to design a jockey silk.
Mathin' Around The Track (1-3) MATH
Program Summary: What does it take to win the Kentucky Derby? It takes a fast horse, and a whole lot of MATH, of course! Students will solve problems taken from the “Five Big Ideas of Math” (Number Properties and Operations, Measurement, Geometry, Probability, and Algebra) as they prepare their horse for the Kentucky Derby in this real-world application of math.
Program Goals: Students understand math is used in day-to-day activities – even while preparing a horse for the Kentucky Derby.
Odds in Everyday Life (4-8) MATH
Program Summary: Ratios and probability are the focus of this real-world application of math. Students gather data by observing past history, as well as conduct a scientific experiment to make predications. We conclude the program with a running of our own “Derby,” and utilizing probability to help make predications.
Program Goals: Students understand probabilities can often be used in everyday problem solving. They understand structuring a situation in terms of ratios, and can then apply the use of probabilities in a variety of real-world applications. They understand the process for selecting the post-positions for horses in the Kentucky Derby.
Science on the Track (4-8) SCIENCE
Program Summary: What does it take to build a safe athletic surface for horses? It all goes back to the process of the weathering a rock, and how it eventually turns to sediment. We will explore both physical and chemical weathering, as we build our own racetrack using a combination of different sediments.
Program Goals: Students understand basic differences in silt, sand and clay and how rock is weathered to form these particles. They apply knowledge to building and maintaining a racetrack. They can identify various landforms and determine how they affect the location of a racetrack.
Thoroughbred Care (K-3) SCIENCE/PRACTICAL LIVING
Program Summary: Keeping a Thoroughbred happy and healthy is much like taking care of a pet at home. Students learn teamwork is essential in preparing a horse for the Kentucky Derby, as they perform the many jobs in the stables.
Program Goals: Students understand the importance of daily animal care both in home pet situations as well as professionally in the sport of Thoroughbred racing. They understand the basics of horse care and grooming. They can identify and explain the use of several pieces of grooming equipment.
Superhorse, The Shoe and You (4-12) SCIENCE/PRACTICAL LIVING
PowerPoint Presentation
Program Summary: It takes two very special athletes to win the Kentucky Derby – one three year old Thoroughbred racehorse – and a jockey. This program will explore the athleticism and physiology of both athletes, as well as other factors that go into the making of a champion. Healthy lifestyle choices will also be covered in this highly interactive program. This program will use two Kentucky Derby legends as examples: the 1973 Triple Crown champion Secretariat, and four-time Derby winner Bill Shoemaker.
Program Goals: Students understand Thoroughbred horses and jockeys in athletic terms, including team aspects. They can identify and explain several pieces of basic horse racing equipment. They can relate good nutrition and training habits to their own lifestyles. They understand some basic equine physiology.
Creating Traditions (2-3) SOCIAL STUDIES
Program Summary: Let’s celebrate! The concept and importance of cultural traditions is explored before we attend our very own Kentucky Derby. We’ll act out the day as we participate in the many Kentucky Derby traditions - maybe even one of your students will win the Derby!
Program Goals: Students understand the concept of traditions and their place in both family and community. They recognize and describe well-known Kentucky Derby traditions. They understand traditions make our lives fuller. They can exhibit good role-playing skills.
Economics and the Derby (4-12) SOCIAL STUDIES
Program Summary: Students see examples of items that have been used as "money" in other cultures to establish money as a representation of value. The difference between needs and wants, the concept of scarcity and the balance of supply and demand are established. Students observe and participate in hands-on demonstrations of making a buying decision, how the value of an item can diminish, and how money comes into a community and passes through many different hands. The program concludes with a demonstration of the economic impact of the Kentucky Derby on the local and regional economy.
Program Goals: Students understand and can demonstrate money as a symbol of value, the dynamics of making buying decisions, the changing value of items and how money circulates throughout a local economy. They understand the economic impact of the Kentucky Derby on the local economy.
Race Through Time (4-12) SOCIAL STUDIES
Program Summary: This program covers six centuries of history, illustrating the importance of horses in societies around the world. Learn about the significant role of African Americans in the development of Thoroughbred racing in our country before and after the Civil War. Discover how their exceptional horse skills were passed down from the mounted warriors of ancient African kingdoms, through the centuries and across oceans to the first enslaved Africans working with horses in the United States, all the way to the emancipated horsemen who helped make the Kentucky Derby a success. Our history lesson culminates with the first Kentucky Derby, held in May 1875 and with the dominance of Black jockeys in the early years of the historic race.
Program Goals: Students understand the place of horse racing in historical context, how the role of horses in our society have changed over time, and how the sport of horse racing helped build Kentucky as we know it today. Students understand that enslaved persons held varied roles in American society and how horsemen fit within that structure. They understand reasons for and the process involved in the beginning of the Derby and Churchill Downs Racetrack. They can incorporate this information with existing knowledge.
Vanishing Bluegrass (4-12) SOCIAL STUDIES
PowerPoint Presentation
Program Summary: Population growth, land development and suburban sprawl are issues that affect communities across America. In Kentucky, the Bluegrass Region is being threatened as more and more of its farmland is being developed, prompting the World Monument Fund to include this region on its list of 100 most endangered sites. This interactive program explores the early days of the Bluegrass Region, as Thoroughbred farms became established and flourished. Three historic Thoroughbred farms will be “visited” as students see the effects of suburban sprawl and land development. Students will participate in activities that show that changes are taking place all around them – in their communities, neighborhoods and even schools; and they have a voice in what they want their community to look like.
Program Goals: Students understand the importance of the Thoroughbred industry in Kentucky. They learn the origins, as well as some of the great farms that are an integral part of the cultural and economic landscape of the Bluegrass Region. The effects of the Civil War are explored, as well as the current issue of suburban sprawl and land-use issues most communities in Kentucky are dealing with.
Kentucky's Derby (4-12) SOCIAL STUDIES
PowerPoint Presentation
Program Summary: Take a trip back in time as we meet the men and women – and horses - who shaped the history of the Commonwealth.
Program Goals: Students will understand the origins and development of the Kentucky Derby as not only an important event for the commonwealth of Kentucky, but also as a foundation of its cultural and economic identity. Students will learn that a diverse group of men and women contributed to Kentucky and its place within a larger American history context.
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