Educational Materials Center
We are the professional, cultural artifacts and fine arts library with over 30,000 items available for use by educators.
In addition to books, the collection includes artifacts, exhibits, sculptures, art prints, library panels, life-size costumed figures, textiles and videos.

- Call – 520-225-4783
- Email – Education Materials Center
- Visit – Thomas L. Lee Instructional Resource Center, 2025 E Winsett St, Tucson, AZ 85719 (Map)
This costume figure shows a dancer wearing a beautiful gold and purple dress, with gold trim. It is the traditional dress worn when dancing the "Bharata Natyam". She has beads and flowers in her hair, and silver earrings, bracelets, and ankle bracelets.

Dancer of India
This costume figure shows a Japanese woman wearing a typical printed Kimono, common clothing during a tea ceremony. In her hands is a ceramic Japanese teacup.

Japanese Woman
This library panel displays images from Gerald McDermott’s Caldecott Honor book Anansi the Spider: A Tale from the Ashanti. Anansi is a trickster character in Akan folklore, originating in Ghana, Africa.

Anansi the Spider : Ashanti Culture - Ghana, Africa
This resource kit comes with:
- Lesson plan folder
- Book
- Coral and starfish example
- Example board
- Boxed diorama example
- Coral printouts
- Color paper
- Pipe cleaners
- Cloth pieces (in one large bag)
- Wire for coral dioramas
- Small shells
- Cloth balls
- Cardboard cutouts
- Dowel rods/craft sticks
- Sand

Coral Reef Diorama
This costume figure shows an Afghan girl dressed in a burgundy and gold embroidered dress, with matching plangi-dyed head scarf, white embroidered pants, and a small doll.

Afghan Girl
This resource kit comes with:
- Lesson plan folder
- Sample panel
- Sample diorama
- Omamori (Japanese charm)
- Japanese art examples
- Glue sticks
- Bag of paper supplies
- 3x3 foam squares
- Raffia (dry fiber)
- Black paper (for diorama backing)
- Origami paper
- Ribbon / string
- Construction paper.
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Shogatsu (Japanese New Year)
This library panel displays the vibrant public art scene in Tucson, seen in murals pictured throughout Tucson. Shown here is Agave Lady by Rock “CYFI” Martinez, Greetings from Tucson, three murals by Joe Pagac, and two murals by Jessica Gonzales.

Murals: Around Tucson
This book is about a series of vignettes about the journey a young Latina girl takes through their coming-of-age in Chicago. We recently acquired a hardback class set of copies of this modern classic of Chicano literature.

The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros
Van Gogh once wrote to his brother...
“...the sight of the stars always makes me dream in as simple a way as the black spots on the map, representing towns and villages, make me dream.” “Just as we take the train to go to Tarascon or Rouen, we take death to go to a star.”

Starry Night by Vincent van Gogh (1889)
RK 4001 Row 1 Shelf 1
This resource kit comes with:
- 30 sets of plastic tangram Puzzles
- 30 sets of line drawn animal handouts
- 30 sets with no lines, handout
- 1 book: "The Fun with Tangrams Kit"

Chinese Tangram Resource Kit
LP 81 Panel 1
This library panel showcases the origin of the Man in the Maze, or I’itoi, in Tohono O’odham culture. The Maze is a labyrinth that represents the pattern of life; with obstacles in the way, and happiness for those who find their way through.

Tohono O'odham Maze
FAP Escher 6
This fine art print depicts a little man emerging from a gate. He does not seem aware that he will dissolve into the geometric pattern below. Escher said the art was part of a set of prints that are all “expressions of my search for the new direction in which I feel driven.”

Cycle, by M. C. Escher (May 1938)
RK 4001 Row 1 Shelf 21
This resource kit comes with:
• brushes
• brush containers
• water containers
• paper
• ink
• folder with lesson plans
• Japanese calligraphy book

Japanese Calligraphy Resource Kit
E 522 Row 6 Shelf 7
This exhibit showcases a reproduction of a Grecian Urn that may be seen in large sizes in the Garden of Versailles. Many pieces like this were covered in “patina”, a thin green or brown layer that forms on metals like copper and bronze.
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Grecian Urn (Greek)
RK 4001 Row 1 Shelf 6
This resource kit comes with:
- 2 large pieces of printed fabric
- teddy bear
- violin
- saxophone
- basket with fake ivy
- plastic banana
- conch shell
- bundle of grapes
- small clay pot

Objects for Still Life Drawing
This exhibit shows a pensive cat “loafing” in place. Although conceived in a more playful mood than most of her work, this cat is somewhat characteristic, showing Poupelet’s ability to capture feeling in bronze.

Statuette of a Cat by Jane Poupelet (1878-1932)
This fine art print depicts a whole word spinning out of control toward a central vortex of luminous light. This showcases Dali’s renowned technical skill in surrealist art.

Maelstrom by Salvador Dali (1904-1989)
This exhibit shows a reproduction of a sculpture from Dynasty XIX (1270 BCE), Egypt. In ancient Egypt, Hathor was depicted as either mother or consort to Horus and Ra. She is then believed to be the symbolic mother of the pharaohs, monarchs of Egypt.
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Hathor Relief (Egypt)
This book details a museum-style exhibition of world culture. The book begins with a general introduction to archaeology and provides a full-spread timeline for reference. Learn about the people of the ancient world and discover the amazing objects they left behind

Historium by Jo Nelson (author), Richard Wilkinson (illustrator)
This exhibit shows a trilobite fossil, in two pieces, from the Cambrian Era. Trilobites had minerals in their exoskeleton that easily fossilize. Despite being so old, over 20,000 species have been discovered.

Trilobite Fossil, Cambrian Era ~500 million years ago
This exhibit shows a traditional African Zulu drum, hand carved out of wood and topped with either cowhide or goat skin. The Zulu are the largest ethnic group in South Africa, with more than 13 million people mainly living in the province KwaZulu-Natal.

Zulu Drum
This exhibit shows a mask used to celebrate the festival Setsubun (lit. ‘seasonal division’ in Japanese). A popular way to celebrate is to throw roasted soybeans to ward off evil spirits and invite good luck. Some wear masks to appear as oni (demons), acting as evil spirits warded away by the bean-throwing.

Japanese Setsubun Festival Mask
This exhibit shows an unassuming looking slab with inscriptions in two Ancient Egyptian languages (hieroglyphic and Demotic) and Ancient Greek. Ancient Greek rulers of Egypt issued copies of a celebration of Ptolemy V Epiphanes’s coronation as king of Egypt in 196 BCE. Since the text is the same in all three languages, the Rosetta Stone was used to decipher hieroglyphics using knowledge of Ancient Greek!

Rosetta Stone (196 BCE)
This exhibit shows a replica of a sculpture of the head of a woman. The original is in the Lourve, in Paris. It is unknown who the woman depicted in this is. They could have been a specific person known by the artist, or perhaps a goddess presented in the humanized style of the time.

Head of a Young Woman (4th Century Greece)
This fine art print depicts the Campbell soup of the title flavor. Warhol was known for his fascination with consumer culture. He once said “I used to drink it. I used to have the same lunch every day, for 20 years... the same thing over and over again.”
