Art Online Learning Courses & Lesson Plans

One thing we don’t do on a ship is use color that is at all yellowish green—you know, anything that will remind a traveler of the condition of his stomach.
—Dorothy Marckwald, interior designer, S.S. United States

Lesson Plans

Learn about the art of camouflage and how ship design in WWI was inspired by Cubism.
(Grades 5 – 8, 9 – 12)

SSHSA_POS_PA_0008 — See beautiful paintings from the Posner Maritime Art Collection and teach students about the transition from sail to steam power.
(Grades 6 – 8, 9 – 12)

Use this project based learning lesson to teach students art skills through interdisciplinary work with social studies.
(Grades 9 – 12)

Savannah lobby — Learn about color in interior design with this lesson about Jack Heaney and the design of the NS *Savannah*.
(Grades 5 – 8, 9 – 12)

Get inspired by the interior design of the Fall River Line and teach student soft slab construction for Ceramics 1. (Grades 9 – 12)

Learn from a first hand experience of traveling on a steamship in the 1840s and create a project using one point perspective or book binding techniques.
(Grades 6 – 8)

Students will demonstrate their understanding of basic shapes by using several cut out shapes to form a ship.
(Grades PreK – 1)

Other Topics to Explore

Visit the SSHSA Virtual Museum to see the Posner Maritime Art Collection.

Check out this Just for Fun activity with coloring pages from our collections.

Read more about Samuel Ward Stanton and his maritime drawings.

Secondary Sources

Click here to download the pdf of Lorraine Coons and Alexander Varias, Tourist Third Cabin: Steamship Travel in the Interwar Years, “Controversies of Design: Modernism and Traditional Style on the Liners” (New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2003).