Case Study: Wing Luke Museum of the Asian Pacific American Experience

      The Wing Luke museum has a long history of engaging their community to co-create their exhibition. They focus on empowering their community members to create exhibitions and tell their own stories on their own terms. The community- based exhibition model they implement aims to integrate community members throughout the process. This is called Co-creating. Co-creative projects are when partnerships are made with participants rather than based solely on institutional goals.

      Their exhibition Sikh Community: over 100 years in the Pacific Northwest came about when museum staff and organizers from the Sikh Coalition conducted an informal outreach to form a committee to direct the exhibition. Sikh coalition is a volunteer organization that began in 2001 to address the misdirected hate and discrimination that the Sikh community faced in the aftermath of 9/11 started. It was made up of 19 people through outreach and conducted oral history with 29 individuals and gathered artifacts, photographs, and documents from 14 individuals and families. By the end there were 75 community members in total helping in creating this exhibition.

Organizational structure of Wing Luke Museum

·         Non- profit organization with 501c3 status

·         Volunteer-run board of trustees currently with 20 members

·         Each member is a member of one of the following committees:

o   Capital campaign

o   Development

o   Finance and capital project advisory

·         16 full-time staff and 11 part-time staff

      Community members participate from exhibition development to design to fabrication and installation, and including exhibition fundraising, publicity and marketing, education and public programming.  The museum aims to put community members in decision-making positions where they are empowered to determine project direction, set priorities, make selections, and guide project execution.

Here is a diagram of their Exhibit team

On a basic level the exhibit team consists of:

·         Museum staff- who are in charge of developing the community vision for an exhibitions and bring it to being. They are the “technical advisors, project administrators and community organizers.”

·         Core community members- consist of 10-15 members who form the Community Advisor Committee (CAC). The members have a direct connection with the exhibition topic and are mostly leaders within other communities. They make the decisions and are in charge of making the main message and encourage participation within the community.   

·         Participating community members- the contribute to the exhibition by:

o   Participating in and helping conduct interviews, translating and  transcribing

o   Artifact, photograph and document loans and gathering

o   General research

o   Outreach

o   Serving as docents, speakers and volunteers.

According to Nina Simons There three main reasons that cultural institutions engage in co-creative projects:

1.       To give voice and be responsive to the needs and interest of local community members.

2.       To provide a place for community engagement and dialogue

3.       To help participants develop skills that will support their own individual and community goals.

For the community the wing Luke museum is an essential community institution because they are part of the process and their voices are heard there is a strong sense of ownership and pride.

Here are some tips from Nina Simon to facilitate co-creation in museums:

1.     Staff members and participants respect each other’s goals and interests in pursuing the project. They should create a set of shared guidelines for what is and isn’t acceptable and expected over the duration of the project.

2.     Staff members should not harbor pre-conceived ideas about the outcome of the project. They should be willing to let the project go in the direction that is of greatest value to participants, within the scope of the project guidelines.

It’s important to think about how to empower the visitors. How can the staff give amateurs the skills and the tools needed to accomplish shared goals?

To give visitors the skills and tools needed to lead their own tours, here are some suggestions to empower them

§  Provide visitors with maps and encourage them to mark their favorite places as they explore the exhibits

§  Ask visitors to assign a theme or title to a collection of their favorite places

§  Post the maps and titles in a central location along with the times when visitors will be available to give the tours they have devised

§  Make available interpretative literature or staff consultations to give tour guides reference materials for their tours

Co-creative projects and the community process that Wing Luke Museum has allows museums to form partnerships and bonds that feed the interests and needs of the community it serves. Engaging the community to become a part of the process in designing programs and exhibition it empowers and give ownership to the participants.

Community Engagement- The National Palace Museum(Taiwan) as an example

In light of the strategies we talked about in class and seen in museums and sites, I think it would be interesting to look at how museums in other countries are carrying out community engagements. The examples we have seen and strategies we talked about were mainly in developing new visitors from various communities. By means such as developing convenient access for different communities or invite community members to involve in exhibition development. What about strategies to make an existing community improve their museum visit experience? The National Palace Museum in Taipei, Taiwan will be an example for this situation. The discussion is based on the 2011 National Palace Museum Annual Report.

As the major museum in Taiwan, The National Palace Museum had a brilliant collection of chinese artifacts. In the 1960s, in contrast of the communist Mainland China, the NPM in Taiwan under the rule of a right wing government opened with its representative collection of Chinese Artifact. As basically the only accessible Chinese arts collection, the NPM acted as the major resource of Chinese art history research at the time. The significance of its selective but comprehensive collection in Chinese arts remains recognized today. Recently, the components of potential audiences is experiencing a fundamental change. With the government policy canceling the restrictions posed upon tourists from Mainland China, the visitor number in NPM multiplies all of a sudden. Instead of considering the needs for communities and making efforts to engage them into museum visits, the NPM is facing a huge amount of new visitors from a new community that had it had never encountered before.

Chinese tourists visiting Taiwan often take the NPM as a must-seen tourist sight. Many of the tourists are not museum goers, to them, visiting NPM is merely one of the many stops in their fixed touring schedule designed by the travel agency. However, this new community is becoming the largest portion of visitors in the NPM. Thus, the NPM is currently dealing with problems such as large amount of visitors in specific galleries, noise, viewing order...etc. The most urgent issue will be maintaining the quality of visiting experience to all visitors, on the base of that can the NPM talk more about giving a rewarding museum visit experience.     

     

Below are the strategies the NPM is taking to cope with the situation:

• Extend opening hours

In 2010, 3,440,000 people visited the Museum. In 2011, 3,840,000 people visited. (According to the visitor number statistic chart, they main increase of visitors are from Mainland China.

) To alleviate the crowds and to improve the visiting experience, starting July 1, 2010, the NPM prolonged its opening hours. The museum now opens at 8:30 am (instead of 9:00 am) and closes at 6:30 pm (instead of 5:00 pm). 

• Cooperation between organizations

The NPM also maintains close contact with the Tourism Bureau. Any information regarding the Museum’s exhibitions or visitation can be relayed to tour group staff through e-mail. Short films promoting the Museum are also sent to tour groups and tour guides to show on buses. The Museum will continue working with the Tourism Bureau to strengthen the tour guide training process to ensure the quality of each visitor’s visit. (NPM annual report, 2011, p. 69 )

• Order Management in Exhibition Halls

•Circulation route for each gallery are planned and implemented to guide visitors.

•To improve the quality of each viewer's visit, a counting system was installed to monitor the visitor flow in and out of the Main Exhibition Hall.

•Hand-held signs by gallery assistants subtly instruct visitors to lower their voice and avoid verbal or physical conflicts.

•To improve the quality of visit, measures were taken to resolve the noise issue of group visitors.

•To maintain orderliness of the exhibition “Landscape Reunited: Huang Gongwang and ‘Dwelling in the Fuchun Mountains,’” the number of viewers in the exhibition at one time was limited to 20. This allowed the Museum to appropriately manage the visitors and to enhance the viewing quality.

It is clear that order management is a major issue in dealing with this community. The NPM is also making efforts to reach other organizations to deal with the situation. In all, I think the positive attitude to embrace this the new community is encouraging. 

Other than the passive community engagement above, the NPM has its outreach programes aiming different communities in Taiwan. Here are some examples:

• When Young People Meet the NPM: The Saturday Night at the NPM

The event was sponsored by the Dinxin International Group

and the Wei-chuan Foods Corp. A total of 52 shows were presented this year, with 53,955 attendants. Another 2 shows were put on during the Lunar New Year and Lantern Festival, with 1,000 attendants.

• New Melody from the NPM

New Melody from the National Palace Museum is held in the Wenhuitang Auditorium every Wednesday between 2:30 pm and 4:00 pm. Starting From July 2009, Lanting Kun Opera Troupe, Taipei Li-yuan Chinese Opera Theater, the Comedians Workshop, and the Chinese Opera Troupe of National Taiwan College of Performing Arts have performed at the NPM. From April to June 2011, the NPM extended its “Fragrance Fills the Courtyard: Chinese Flower Paintings through the Ages” and invited the Taipei KunQu Society to present the late Ming dynasty playwright “The Peony Pavilion.” From July to September 2011, GuoGuang Opera Company presented the “Legend of the White Snake.” From October to December 2011, to coincide with the exhibition, “Emperor Kangxi and the Sun King Louis XIV: Sino-Franco Encounters in Arts and Culture,” the National Taiwan College of Performing Arts featured three plays performed during Emperor Kangxi’s 60th birthday: “Drunken Rage in the Temple of Wutai Mountain,” “The West Chamber – Temple Encounter,” and “Guan Yu’s Daring Escape.” From July 2008 to December 2011, a total of 93 shows were shown, attracting 16,624 attendees.

• National Treasures Ballot

From September 23 to November 22, 2011, the“National Treasures Grand Selection: Splendid Treasures Online Ballot” was held simultaneously with the special exhibition“Splendid Treasures: A Hundred Masterpieces of the National Palace Museum on Parade.”Everyone was welcomed to vote online for their favorite national treasure in the NPM. The online ballot was combined with the physical exhibition to showcase the most representative Museum artifacts. Web links were provided to show related information regarding the artifacts. While voters were selecting their favorite objects, they could learn more about the NPM’s artifacts. The result of the ballot will be used planning the route of student group tours, developing lesson plans for teachers, in hopes of promoting the Museum’s artifacts, enhancing the cooperation with schools on all levels, and increasing the cultural value of the Museum’s collections.

• The Good Neighbor Program

To promote the Museum’s educational outreach, in 2011, the Museum invited local communities to appreciate “The Body Beautiful in Ancient Greece,” “Celebration by Marc Chagall” and “Emperor Kangxi and the Sun King Louis XIV: Sino-Franco Encounters in Arts and Culture.” Guided tours were available to help them understand the artifacts better. This year, Linxi, Xishan, Cuishan, and Fulin village were invited. The program received enthusiastic remarks and responses from the residents.

With these community outreach programes, the citizen visiting number did increase from 1,443,204 to 1,643,200 in three years. However, the number of Mainland Chinese visitors were in almost the same number, wich lead the focus back to the necessity to successfully engage them without disturbing other visitors‘ visiting experiences. 

There are many more informations in the annual report, I think it is a very well organized material for us to have a glance of what this museum is doing. The pictures inside are definitely worth a look :)

Case Study: Teens at the New York Hall of Science - Science Career Ladder

Although most of previous posts on engaging teen audiences have focused on art and humanities museums, science museums across the country have been working with teens for years. With the nation’s renewed emphasis on science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) education and careers, science museums can be key players in science learning and teaching outside of the classroom. As John H. Falk and Lynn D. Dierking note in “The 95 Percent Solution,” the vast majority of science learning takes place outside of formal schooling. They argue that one of the major contributors to the achievement gap between low-income students and their more privileged counterparts is the opportunity for learning outside of school time, such as through summer camps, travel, service projects, independent research, and museum visits. Teenagers are also in one of the age groups least like to partake of out-of-school science learning (eg: field trips are less likely in high school than elementary school). Museums and other institutions of informal learning can and should be active supporters of STEM education for teenagers, provoking and supporting their natural curiosity. This post looks at one museum that has done just that.

Since 1986, the New York Hall of Science (NYSCI) has sought to engage teenagers of diverse backgrounds and interests and encourage careers in the sciences, through the Science Career Ladder (SCL). The museum recruits college and high school students to work as Explainers, with potential to advance and become leaders of the program and at the museum. At the same time, Explainers are exposed to and encouraged to explore a variety of STEM-related careers. The SCL also partners with Queens College to encourage science majors to pursue science teaching and with other universities and organizations. The program has been successfully disseminated to and implemented in science museums around the country.

In this report on SCL, NYSCI outlines and evaluates the program, which has evolved over time in response to multiple evaluations and expansions. In the program’s current incarnation, interested high school students complete an application and participate in a group interview. The museum does not base selection on grades and actually seeks out students working below their full potential, who have perhaps become disengaged from school or are shy. In this way, the program engages adolescents who have some interest in science, but might otherwise fall through the cracks or never realize their aptitude or passion for science, teaching, communication, or leadership. SCL can be a tremendous opportunity for these often overlooked students, especially since the program emphasizes mentorship.

Participants enter the program as Explainer Volunteers, assisting with public programs and special events. Some may have already been involved at NYSCI, in elementary and middle school as after-school Science Club Members, though many have no prior affiliation. By passing through stages of training and receiving good performance reviews, participants may move up to be paid Explainer Interns and then Explainers, at which point they receive more intensive training and begin interpreting exhibits and demonstrations, one weekend day a week and summer weekdays. Explainers that demonstrate leadership potential may become Explainer Floor Captains, and eventually, Program Explainers, aiding in the overall management of the program and its special projects. Explainers can even continue advancing after high school, which is especially crucial considering the dearth of meaningful museum programming for older teens and young adults, as noted in a previous post. There are real opportunities for growth in all stages of the program, and participants are often encouraged to apply for other positions at the museum.

Through the Explainer program teenagers develop their scientific thinking and teaching skills, while building their confidence, sense of leadership, and scholarly ambitions. The program aims to accomplish this development by making the Explainers full members of the museum community, giving them real responsibilities, providing professional development, holding them to high expectations, and listening to their ideas. Participants are taken seriously. As noted in our earlier post, many teens are eager to work and gain a sense of independence, but the quality of such work is crucial to the positive development of the teen and the impact the work experience will have on future career progress. According to the report, multiple evaluations of the program have noted a sense of peer camaraderie and mentorship, such that older participants motivate younger ones to pursue their goals. As noted earlier, fidelity and identity formation are critical in adolescence. The fact that the program encourages supportive peer-to-peer and adult mentoring helps ensure the confidence, positive development, and success of the teen Explainers.

The impact of the program’s structure and values are evident in its measurable success. For example, the high school graduation rate of participants is five times higher than that of other New York City students in the same diverse demographic groups. Even more dramatically, 98% of SCL’s over 2500 alumni have graduated college, well above local and national averages. The fact that this program targets underserved high school students not necessarily performing at their full potential makes these statistics even more dramatic.

The Science Career Ladder is indeed just that: a ladder. Many of the people now running the program and holding other high level positions at the museum actually started as Explainers. This alumni are key leaders at the museum and can use their own experiences in the program to continue to shape it, evaluate it, and prioritize it. In addition, over 60% of participants have gone into other STEM careers, at least partially as a result of the opportunities SCL provides to explore career options and tap into its alumni network. Many have also gone into teaching, helping to continue the cycle of learning. Meanwhile, NYSCI has helped other science museums implement similar programs. In all these ways, NYSCI does indeed appear to be contributing to Falk and Dierking’s “95% solution.”

Additional articles on and reviews of SCL:
“Explainer Program, New York Hall of Science: Engaging Young People in Science Education and Stimulating Interest in STEM Careers” from The Opportunity Equation
“The Science Career Ladder” from Change the Equation
Sickler, Jessica (2009). “New York Hall of Science Science Career Ladder Retrospective Impact Study Final Report.” from Informal Science        


A sampling of other museums that have also implemented career ladder programs:
--Yale Peabody Museum of Natural History - SciCORPS (Science Career Orientation & Readiness Program for Students)
--Pacific Science Center - Discovery Corps
--Thinktank Birmingham Science Museum - Science and Heritage Career Ladder

Community Engagement and Home School Groups

The National Park Service published Stronger Together: A Manual on the Principles and Practices of Civic Engagement. This manual is a great resource for community engagement because it explores the topic in depth. The NPS manual lists four principles of community engagement:

1. Build genuine relationships.
2. Create effective engagement processes.
3. Deliver relevant interpretive and educational programs and materials.
4. Sustain civic engagement over time.

I thought it would be interesting to compare these principles to the principles established by Graham Black, author of Embedding Civil Engagement in Museums. The UK scholar proposes five principles of civil engagement for urban history museums:


(1) Urban history museums as memory institutions can collect, conserve, document and represent the cultures and life experiences of all those who live within their localities, helping to create an inclusive civil environment.
(2) Urban history museums as learning institutions can help to develop informed individuals and communities who can contribute positively to decision making about their future lives.
(3) Urban history museums as social institutions can reach out to welcome, support and represent the many voices within the communities they serve in partnerships of equals.
(4) Urban history museums as democratic institutions can actively promote civil dialogue and reflective participation in civil society.
(5) Urban history museums as responsive institutions can work to change their organisation and culture to meet the needs of contemporary society.

While each publication has its distinctive qualities, there are some key similarities between the two. They both believe that the voices within each community should be valued and respected. Both agree that museums are a unique space in which community engagement can function. And both hope to inspire people to invest in a common purpose.

While researching for my post, I found a particularly good example of a metro area that reached out to a specific audience--Atlanta institutions extended opportunities to home school groups. An article printed in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, New Culture of Learning; Metro Museums, Zoo Atlanta and other institutions draws droves to events tailored to home schoolers (01/31/2010), seemed to a be a case study in how to effectively engage one particular audience. As the number of students who are home schoolers rose, the area museums began to hear more voices calling for programs specific to home schoolers' needs. Lani Schoelder, a Zoo Atlanta professional, is quoted, "There were a lot of home schoolers and not a lot of programs for them, especially science-related ones." Many home school teachers/parents asked the museums in the area, "Is there anything you can do for us?" The group advocating for home school programs made their voices and needs apparent; and because of this, it seems like museums developed programs to meet those needs. This article concludes with a list of 8 institutions that now have programs specific to home-school groups. The article also discusses some of the challenges that still remain-- like how to deal with differing, personalized curricula and students' history of learning through one-on-one interaction with the instructor. Although there are still challenges, this story seems to be one of promise--a group that previously felt dismissed by cultural institutions is now seeming to be embraced by them.

To me, the Atlanta home-school story is inspiring because we can identify the application of community engagement principles; specifically, the first and third principles mentioned in the NPS manual as well as the third and fifth principles mentioned by Graham Black. In the comments section of the blog, I welcome you to discuss more examples of effective community engagement. Can you think of other museums that apply these principles successfully?

What is Community Engagement and Why is it Important?

A Google search on “community engagement” yields many, many different results.  Principles of community engagement, strategies for increasing community engagement, organizations that focus on leadership and community engagement -- the list goes on and on. But what is community engagement, really? Though specific definitions vary, community engagement is typically described as the process of forming a mutually beneficial, ongoing partnership or relationship between an institution and its surrounding communities.

So what role does community engagement play in museums? The Colchester + Ipswich Museums in Ipswich, UK consider community outreach and community engagement an important part of their core vision and values. On their website, they do an excellent job of explaining why community engagement is essential in museums:

“As part of the process of attracting new audiences it is necessary to have more inclusive and accessible services, and ones that reflect the diverse histories and stories of the whole community.  A way to produce more inclusive services is to directly involve the community in helping to develop and deliver a particular project or service, display or exhibition.  This helps bring about a feeling of ownership, break down initial perceptual barriers as well as creating a better end result.  Empowering the community to play a part, to continue to be involved and to have an influence on service development can only be of benefit to a publicly funded organisation.”

Our group's blog posts will focus on the many ways in which museums are involving different communities through their programs, exhibitions, and events. We will present case studies, look at how museums are engaging specific audiences and communities, and discuss some of our own personal experiences as students in the Museum Education Program. To kick off our blog about community engagement in museums, we thought that we could each share what community engagement means to us:

Joo Lee: Actively engaging the community has become very important as museums have evolved. Its survival and growth had been previously depended on the elite and had been closed off to the public. Now the museum relies on the support of its community for its survival and has taken on a different role. By focusing on the importance and the benefits to its community, it better advocates for our museums.  This blog will focus on successful case studies analysis of why they worked and what the  museums are doing now to reach out to specific audiences. building a strong relationship with the community strengthens trust and provide a sense of  ownership of the museum in which museums rely.

Julie: To me, community engagement is all about building relationships -- with individuals, with other institutions or organizations, and with the community as a whole. I believe that education and open, honest dialogue each play a major role in achieving these kinds of sustained relationships.

Kaitlyn: Like Julie, I believe community engagement is about building relationships. Museums must take a special effort to nurture the connection between groups that visit the site often, in addition to those that visit less frequently. Hopefully, by making a conscious effort to support all members of the community, they will encourage diverse audiences to participate in programs, events, etc. This participation between and among groups is an important component of community engagement.

Shadayna: I  agree with  the statements already written by my fellow colleagues. I believe the two most important factors of  community engagement within the museum setting  is establishing trust  with communities and providing an open environment for diverse visitors and discussions. Once a museum achieves these two factors they will  continuously have new and loyal visitors for the museums duration.

Yi-An: Like those had been said by our group members, community engagement is every effort made consciously by the museums, to get the communities museums might be involved with most comfortably engaged. Both providing a welcoming environment and atmosphere for a diversity of visitors, and have diverse members from the communities join the design and display of the exhibitions and programs are very important. To me, I honor the idea of having community representatives engaged from the early stage of program, exhibition and education development. The input of community members can no doubt lead to a more successful community engagement. The Metropolitan Museum of Art's Multicultural Audience Development Initiative is an example of increasing community’s awareness of the museum’s programs and collections.

As we close this post, we invite you to consider your own definition of community engagement. Feel free to comment and share your thoughts!

Museum-School Partnerships

Museums are natural partners with schools; they provide opportunities that deepen formal curriculum, often in a more interactive, hands-on environment. These partnerships exist in a variety of ways - some work with only certain schools, others are more informal and open to student applicants from the area. We as museum educators need to continually advocate for this special relationship between museums of all genres and students. Our group has compiled a list of several interesting and effective partnerships between schools and museums to illustrate their benefit to students.

1. Oakland Museum of California and Korematsu Discovery Academy and La Escuelita (Oakland, California)

http://museumca.org/museum-school-partnerships

The science education department of the Oakland Museum of California partners with three fifth grade classes from Korematsu Discovery Academy and La Escuelita throughout a school year. The program, Water Striders Junior Guides: From Creeks to Coastline, helps students better understand the ecology of local watersheds and the affect their own actions can have on the surrounding habitats. Over the course of the year, students visit a creek, salt marsh, bay, and coast to observe both fresh and salt water environments. The students then use their observations and discoveries to create tours for the Natural Sciences Gallery at the Museum. Additionally, the students work with docents to design activities for younger students and lead students from their own school on tours to teach them about what they have learned during the project. Finally, the students use their new skills and knowledge to participate in a family event where they host their friends and family on a tour.

On-line exhibits of students’ work:

http://tinyurl.com/http-rosa-com
http://tinyurl.com/http-ali-com
http://tinyurl.com/http-rusche-com

2. The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum Student Docent Program (Ridgefield, Connecticut)

http://www.aldrichart.org/education/docent.php

This program is not a partnership with a specific school, but rather open to students from local schools. There are two levels of the program - Student Docents in grades 5-12, and Varsity Docents in grades 9-12. The Student Docent Program trains students in small groups to facilitate discussions with their own peers about contemporary art. The hope is that when their own classmates lead them on a tour, students are “more likely to make connections between the work on view and their own experiences.” Students who have gone through the docent program twice and are willing to make a more serious commitment are eligible to apply for the Varsity Docent Program. This program functions similarly to an internship, and introduces students to additional aspects of the museum environment, including multiple programs and audiences. This on-site experience is combined with discussions with staff members, field trips to New York, and artist workshops, and is intended to give student participants a strong foundational understanding of museum work.

3. Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum (Boston, Massachusetts)

http://www.gardnermuseum.org/education/school_partnerships

The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum partnerships with a small number of schools each year in order to build deep working relationships. This year they are working with Boston Latin School, Maurice J. Tobin K08 School, Edward M. Kennedy Academy for Health Careers, Dudley Street Neighborhood Charter School, and Rafael Hernandez K-8 School. Isabella Stewart seeks to help students explore art in a way that they can make connections through their own experiences and knowledge. They do this using Visual Thinking Strategies (VTS), a discussion-based pedagogy that asks three questions: “What’s going on in this picture?” “What do you see that makes you say that?” and “What more can we find?” Through this discussion, students develop skills in reading artwork, becoming more flexible thinkers, and learning ways to become better speakers and listeners. The program is a true partnership between school and museum, as teachers must  present 10 VTS lessons, and students visit the Museum multiple times. These visits last for several hours, and include an art-making project in the Education Studio or Greenhouse Classroom.

4. Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County (Los Angeles, California)

http://www.nhm.org/site/for-teachers/teacher-resources/education-arts-roundtable/history

The Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County has created the Education and Arts Roundtable, a partnership that connects Los Angeles-area schools with mid-sized arts organizations. This new initiative developed out of a strategic plan that sought to more deeply engage the community with museum programs. Staff and board members asked, “what sorts of student learning opportunities would emerge when unencumbered by practical needs and logistics.” These partnerships work with grades K-12, and they develop learning projects inspired by the Museum’s collections and resources. The Natural History Museum also includes an area on the first floor, Inter/Act which shows both the students’ work as well as the process they used to reach their questions and discovery. The goal of the Roundtable is help students learn to “use visual and performing arts as a catalyst to learn about the natural and social sciences.”

5. Early Elementary Science Partnership (Chicago, Illinois)

http://fieldmuseum.org/schools/school-partnerships

This partnership is a different from those listed above in that its purpose is to provide K-3 teachers with professional develop opportunities to improve their abilities to teach science. Ten schools have partnered with the Field Museum, Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum, Children’s Museum, Lincoln Park Zoo, CPS Office of Science and Northwestern University as part of a two-year intensive plan of 76 professional development hours. One hundred teachers participate in this professional development, along with university-based coursework, collaborative teacher teams, and field trips, that will eventually reach 3,000 teachers. The goals of this partnership are to improve science content knowledge for both students and teachers, teachers’ ability to use museums as informal learning environments, and to pilot this cooperative partnership between schools, the University, and informal learning environments.

To finish this post, we wanted to provide you all with a website that provides a background, practical ideas, and resources for museum and school partnerships:

www.artbeyondsite.org/handbook/az-museum-school.shtml