Des Moines school to use history building

Des Moines’ “Downtown School” will expand this summer, and construction’s slated to run past the start of the next school year in August. No problem: classes will be held the first few weeks at the Iowa Historical Museum in Des Moines. Public Relations director Roger Munns at the Department of Cultural Affairs. says it isn’t just exhibits, and has an auditorium and several classrooms in it. You can use Iowa history to teach almost any topic, he says. Munns says you could even teach math, with the new exhibit “100 things of the 20th Century.” Will kids look forward to attending school in a museum? Munns says plenty of them enjoy their visits there already.Thousands come for field trips. As they go beyond that, other museum officials are going to see how it works and whether they could do the same thing. The kids are expected to attend all their classes in the History Museum’s building for about the first month of the school year, till expansion work is finished. When construction’s done and the kids go back, the Downtown School is expected to be about twice its original size.