Happy Constitution Day!

Sep 17

Today, September 17th is Constitution Day and I had the opportunity to attend the Celebration at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia. I absolutely adore the Constitution Center so I would like to share with you some of my favorite moments from the day and hope that if you are ever in Philadelphia that you would visit and experience this fantastic museum. Unfortunately, since a lot of the materials at the Constitution Center are on loan, they are copyrighted and photography were prohibited from many of the exhibits.

It started at 8:30 am outside of the Constitution Center with students from Philadelphia area school reading the Preamble followed by the National Anthem and Pledge of Allegiance led by the local chapters of the Daughters of the American Revolution & Sons of the American Revolution.

The museum & exhibits opened at 9:30 and I was one of the first in line for Freedom Rising which is a 360 degrees, multimedia theatrical production that goes through the monumental events that lead to the rise of "We the People" and the American quest for Freedom. It is not a movie, it's narrated by a live actor and even though I've seen it a few times before, the center does update the show to include recent current events.

After the show I exited to the main exhibit on the second floor called The Story of We the People and again it's very interactive and great for students + adults because you can touch things, do activities and participate instead of just reading signs. There is a section on all the three branches of the government. For the Executive office, there's a place where you can "take the oath of office"; for judicial there's a Supreme Court bench and a video that talks about landmark Supreme Court cases; for legislative, there's a section on how a bill becomes law AND they had a wall that asked people to use post its and describe what they would have as the 28th amendment. There's also a jury bench to discuss the importance of jury duty and voting booths where you can take part in "fantasy elections".

I made my way over to the Signers' Hall, the only exhibit that I could actually take a picture but there were about 50 high school students taking selfies with the statue delegates so I decided to head on to the Feature exhibit which is Constituting Liberty: From Declaration to the Bill of Rights which is my favorite exhibit. It contains 1 of the 12 remaining original Bill of Rights and 1 of the 1st edition printed Declaration of Independence from 1832.

After I finished the exhibition, it was time for "President Washington" and "President Lincoln" to cut the cake shall we say and wish the constitution a very happy birthday just paces away from where the Constitution was written.

Independence Hall, National Constitution Center

I ended my day at the Constitution Center with Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyers discussion with Jeff Rosen the President/CEO of of the center to discuss Justice Breyers' new book and the launch of Interactive Constitution which is awesome and will make Social studies, History & AP Government classes so much more interactive, engaging and relevant.

I had an incredible day celebrating the Constitution at the National Constitution Center. Being a history buff, I absolutely relished the opportunity to spend a day at the Constitution Center and seeing so many students having a great time learning about history & government.

As always, thanks for reading!

Until next time,