US Treasury/Smithsonian Museum

Since the dawn of civilization, people have developed systems for exchanging property and establishing a value for the goods they own. Thousands of years ago, people traded or bartered for what they needed, and an item’s worth had to do with how plentiful it was and how badly someone wanted it. In modern times, the language of value and exchange is money: we use it to purchase almost everything and anything, and it forms the cornerstone of our economy. But where does money come from? Who determines just how much money is circulating on any given day? Students watching Behind Closed Doors: The US Treasury, will learn the answers to these questions and many more about the making and safeguarding of US currency.

What makes something a treasure isn’t necessarily the dollar value assigned to it. As we will see in the second segment of Behind Closed Doors: The Smithsonian Museum. Here, students will learn about another kind of treasure; the objects that define and paint a picture of our shared history as Americans and as human beings. By touring the massive collection of 142 million objects at the 16 museums that make up the Smithsonian, students will learn how museums preserve items that are centuries old for future viewing and study. They will get an insiders’ peek at the items that might one day be part of a museum exhibit, and they will explore the difficult and detailed task of preserving and restoring objects from the past. With only 1 percent of the Smithsonian’s collection on display at any given time, this behind-the-scenes tour gives viewers a peek at the other 99 percent.

Objectives
US Treasury: Students will explore the making of US currency and the need to safeguard it from potential counterfeiters and fraud. They will also learn about the ways in which money gets from the government into our pockets, and will indirectly get a chance to see all the different jobs necessary to make, distribute and protect US money.

Smithsonian Museum: Students will learn about the need to have a national museum, the place of history in their lives and those of future generations, and the ways in which objects can tell a story about different moments in time. They also learn the ways in which objects from the past can shed light on disease or even technological development in the present and future.

• artifact
• bullion
• conservation
• counterfeit
• curator
• currency
• exhibit
• forgery
• generation
• posterity
• preservation
• security
• specimen

1. Who decides how much money to print and how is that decision made?

2. Where is paper money made? Where are coins made?

3. What are some of the security systems that make it difficult to copy US currency?

4. What is the 2-man rule? Why is it important to have such a rule for workers at the Bureau of Engraving and Printing?

5. What happens to old or damaged money?

6. What are some of the kinds of security in place at the US Mint, the Bureau of Engraving and Printing and the Federal Reserve Bank? Why is it necessary to have so much security?

7. How does money get from the printing or minting presses to your pocket?

8. How much does it cost to print a $10 bill?

9. The Federal Reserve is called the “banker’s bank.” Why? What does this mean? What is the role of the Federal Reserve banks across the country?

10. The US Mint earned a whopping $2.6 billion last year? How did it make a profit? Where did these funds come from?

11. Aside from Fort Knox, where else is gold, silver and platinum stored?

12. Why is it important to know how much money is in circulation? What would be the consequences if someone doubled or tripled the amount of money that the Federal Reserve decided to put into the economy?

13. Which is the most valuable metal and why?

14. What is the Smithsonian Institution? Explain the role of the Smithsonian.

15. What kinds of objects does the Smithsonian have – give as broad a list as possible?

16. Where does the Smithsonian get the objects that it stores or puts on display?

17. Why is it important to save objects from one generation to another? What can we learn from the past that might help us today?

18. Which is the most popular of the Smithsonian Museums? Why do you think that is? Would it be your favorite? Explain your answer.

19. What is involved in restoring a historic object?

20. How does the Smithsonian keep track of its inventory? How did they do it in the past?

21. Why do you think the Smithsonian collects so many different kinds of objects?

22. The Smithsonian can not save every single object ever manufactured, so how do you think they decide which ones are worth saving for the future and which ones we can ignore?

1. Imagine you have been asked to design a new coin or new paper bill. What image would you like to see used and why? What would it commemorate?

2. Design a poster in which you create your own money tree, showing the life cycle of a dollar bill from its initial printing to its last use. Be sure to tell us what happens to money that is too damaged to be used. Or: Create your own timeline in the history of US money, from colonial times to the present. Be sure to illustrate the different people or illustrations that have decorated our currency over the years.

3. You’ve just been hired as a curator at the Smithsonian. Your first assignment is to design an exhibit you’d like to see. What kind of exhibit would you design? What story would it tell, what objects would it include, and what would you like visitors to come away learning?

4. Write a letter to the director of the Smithsonian Institution in which you suggest objects from our daily lives that you think they should collect for the future. What objects do you think most tell a story about the way we live in the year 2002? Include objects that would be important to both men and women, and to men and women separately. Be sure to explain why the object is important – what would people 100 or more years from now learn about us from the objects you suggest.