One of the most unique classrooms in Hamilton County isn’t inside a school building. It’s located in a log cabin and across hundreds of acres of historic grounds at Conner Prairie.

In this podcast episode, I talk with Amy Murch, the Hamilton Southeastern Schools teacher-in-residence at the living history museum. In that role, Murch works with every fourth-grade class in the Hamilton Southeastern Schools district, helping students connect classroom lessons with hands-on experiences on the Conner Prairie grounds.

The program, known as “Adventures on the Prairie,” brings thousands of HSE fourth-graders to the museum each school year. Instead of worksheets and desks, students learn by doing — building cardboard boats to study buoyancy on the White River, trying archery and tomahawk throwing to understand forces and motion, exploring simple machines in Prairietown, and interacting with historic interpreters to better understand Indiana’s past.

Murch previously spent more than a decade teaching in the district before taking on the unique position, which blends science, engineering, and history with the outdoor setting of the museum. Her goal is to help students see that learning doesn’t only happen inside a traditional classroom.

Conner Prairie itself is one of Indiana’s best-known living history museums, recreating 19th-century life along the White River and welcoming hundreds of thousands of visitors each year. Through the partnership with HSE Schools, the museum becomes an extension of the school day for Fishers-area students.

In this conversation, Murch discusses how the program works, why experiential learning can make such a difference for young students, and what it’s like to teach history and science in a place where the past quite literally surrounds you.

Listen to the podcast at this link or the link below.