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Risk Takers and Pizza Makers: Kansas Entrepreneurs

Guided tour — Kansas Museum of History, Topeka

Grades — 4th

Who wants pizza? Everybody! That's what made Pizza Hut such a success.

This tour shares the contributions of famous Kansas entrepreneurs highlighted in the museum gallery, including Joseph McCoy, Fred Harvey, Walter Anderson, and the Carney brothers of Pizza Hut fame.

colorboxAt the end of the tour students will make a personal-size pizza using the "standardized" techniques learned on tour. While the pizza is baking, students will be challenged to "piece" together the stories of other Kansas entrepreneurs: Clyde Cessna, Gordon Parks, Walter Chrysler, Takeru Higuchi, and Olive Ann Beech.

This tour addresses grade specific standards and provides pre- and post-visit material to help teachers meet those standards. Included within these materials is Read Kansas! "Famous Kansans" lesson.

Kansas Standards for History, Government and Social Studies:

Standard #3:  Societies are shaped by beliefs, ideas, and diversity

  • 3.1: The student will recognize and evaluate significant beliefs, contributions, and ideas of the many diverse peoples and groups and their impact on individuals, communities, states, and nations.

Kansas College and Career Readiness Standards:

  • SL. 4.3: The student will identify the reasons and evidence a speaker provides to support particular points.
  • SL 4.4: The student reports on a topic or text, tells a story, or recounts an experience in an organized manner, using appropriate facts and relevant descriptive detains to support main ideas or themes; speak clearly at an understandable pace.
  • RF 4.4.a: The student will read with sufficient accuracy and fluency to support comprehension and read on-level text with purpose and understanding.
  • W 4.1: The student will write opinion pieces on topics or texts, supporting a point of view with reasons and information.

Download PDF with tour information

Risk Takers and Pizza MakersSee admission fees.

Length of tour: approximately 90 minutes, with a maximum of one tour per hour.

Number of students in a group: for the best experience, we recommend no more than 25 students per tour.

Registration and scheduling: Submit an online tour request or contact Education, Kansas Museum of History, 785-272-8681, ext. 414; email kshs.education@ks.gov.