The Ohio State University Center for Slavic, East European and Eurasian Studies

CSEEES Culture Boxes

CSEEES Culture Boxes

Culture boxes are a fun way to bring different cultures and history directly into the classroom! CSEEES has collected select realia (objects and material from everyday life that can be used as teaching aids) from Eastern Europe and Eurasia including foreign currencies, toys, crafts, maps, posters, clothing items, and books to create mini culture boxes that can easily be shipped out to teachers across the United States. Teachers can borrow culture boxes from CSEEES to incorporate them into lessons or use them with the material found in some of our online learning modules. Each culture box contains 15-30 different items. Currently, we have culture boxes available for Estonia, Georgia, North Macedonia, Poland, Russia and Uzbekistan, but we hope to add more in the future as items are made available to us. See the drop-down menus below to see a list of contents in each box as well as a short video that showcases each item. 

Additionally, if you would like to donate items to a culture box, please email CSEEES' outreach coordinator Alicia Baca (baca.31@osu.edu) to organize a donation pick-up/drop-off. Currently, we are seeking items for Ukraine and Albania boxes. 

CSEEES Culture Box Request Form

Culture boxes can be loaned to K-14 educators throughout the United States for a minimum of 1 week to a maximum of 3 weeks. Full descriptions of each mini culture box can be found below along with images of the items that are inside of them. Once you have decided which culture box that you would like to borrow, please fill out the form linked below.

Ohio State faculty, graduate students, and educational staff can also request to check out a culture box for a course or educational lecture. Culture boxes can be borrowed for a minimum of 1 day to a maximum of 5 days to those on the Columbus campus. Please note that if multiple requests come in for a single culture box, priority will be given to K-14 educators. 

In order to ensure that culture box contents are not lost, individual items cannot be loaned out.

K-14 Educator Culture Box Request Form

Ohio State Culture Box Request Form

Available Culture Boxes