K-12 Programs
The Nasher Museum offers FREE, standards-aligned guided tours for K–12 students that encourage observation, discussion, and critical thinking through interactive gallery experiences. Designed to support diverse learning styles, tours reinforce classroom objectives and promote arts integration across the curriculum.
Guided tours take place in our current exhibitions. Both guided and self-guided groups wishing to visit the Declaration of Independence copies must submit a reservation inquiry online.
Guided tours are available Tuesday through Friday throughout the school year. Schools may bring up to 60 students to the museum at a time. We also offer limited substitute and bus reimbursement. For groups larger than 60, our staff will work with you to schedule multiple visits. Guided tours last 90 minutes for 3rd-12th grades and 60 minutes for PreK-2nd grade. Students will engage in discussion and critical thinking while viewing five to seven artworks.
Self-guided groups or teacher-led tours are welcome in all of our galleries. Teachers should preview exhibitions to assure the content in each gallery is age appropriate. Self-guided tours must be scheduled in advance.
Available Tours
There’s more than one way to field trip at the Nasher. Explore the options below to find an experience that fits your students and their learning goals.
This tour explores why the Declaration of Independence still matters today. Using the Declaration of Independence copies and works of art from different time periods, students will discover who was included—and left out—when the nation was founded, how the meaning of “We the People” has changed over time, and how the document continues to shape the United States today.
A reservation is required for for group visits to the Declaration of Independence copies.
Introduce the museum to your little ones! Explore the museum and discover the many forms that art takes: paintings, sculpture, murals and even buildings. Hands-on play and artmaking are included to excite and enrich early learning.
Every object in a museum is hiding a story. We have to ask the right questions to find it. In “Once Upon Our Time,” students become story detectives, using the building blocks of every great tale (character, setting, and conflict) to unlock the secrets behind paintings, sculptures, and more. Using elements of art, this NC standards-aligned tour will engage through close looking, guided questions, and a hands-on art-making activity. Students will practice the same skills real storytellers use: noticing details, asking questions, and imagining what happens next.
What does it mean to push back? “Rebel Heart” invites middle and high school students to explore art as a form of resistance: loud, quiet, patient, or immediate. From the raw, DIY energy of 1980s punk visual culture to performance addressing centuries of unpaid labor, students will examine how artists use their work to question the system, challenge institutions, and imagine a shift in power. Using elements of art, this NC standards-aligned tour will engage through discussion, close looking, and critical thinking. Students will analyze what it costs to resist, whose story gets told, and what forms resistance can take beyond the loudest gesture in the room.
Maximum of 30 participants.
Tour Overview: Using art from current exhibitions, this tour allows students to work individually and in small groups to examine and evaluate their observation and communication skills. The group discusses external factors that impact observations. Students will consider how skills for looking at art is a transferrable skill to multiple disciplines, including writing and science!
Free Bus Transportation
Free bus transportation and substitute teacher funding is available upon request while funds last.
Self-Guided Tours
Self-guided groups or teacher led tours are welcome in all of our galleries. Teachers should preview exhibitions to assure the content in each gallery is age appropriate. Self-guided tours must be scheduled in advance.
Complete this form to schedule your self-guided visit or call 919-684-1169.
Schedule a K-12 Tour
Before requesting a tour, please check the calendar below for availability. Tour times listed on the calendar are currently available for the number of students listed in parenthesis.
This calendar will be updated as often as possible, but it does not reflect a “real-time” schedule of K-12 tour reservations.