Smithsonian Learning Lab broadens access to Smithsonian collections for educators and the public

The Smithsonian Learning Lab is the Smithsonian Institution’s digital platform that aggregates images, artifacts and other learning materials from the museum complex’s collections and makes them searchable and reusable for educators, students and the public. The platform is run by the Smithsonian, headquartered in Washington, D.C., and is intended to support learning, research and classroom use.

Users can browse curated and contributed collections drawn from multiple Smithsonian museums and research centers, assemble digital resources into customized learning sets and share those sets with others. The platform includes tools that help teachers and learners organize materials, annotate items and create lesson plans and activities that use Smithsonian assets.

The Smithsonian Learning Lab

The Learning Lab is positioned as a resource for K–12 educators, higher education faculty, museum educators and lifelong learners who want free access to primary-source materials from the Smithsonian’s holdings. It also serves as a public gateway to the institution’s holdings for visitors and residents of the D.C. area who cannot visit every museum in person.

The Smithsonian has framed the Learning Lab as part of its broader mission to increase access to its collections and to support educational outreach. The resource links directly to collection items, images and descriptive metadata so users can cite and reuse materials for noncommercial educational purposes.