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 in Museums: Partnering and Collaborating with Community Organizations

One way that museums can effectively practice community engagement is by partnering and collaborating with community organizations. In a way, museums can view other organizations as a kind of “audience” to work with when creating exhibitions, developing programming, or holding special events. In the process of building these relationships, museums can further engage various groups and individuals in the community, as well. In fact, if you look at the ways in which museums are currently engaging many of the audiences that we have discussed in class (when I presented on museums who have successfully engaged individuals who are homeless, for example), partnerships with outside organizations or other museums oftentimes play a significant role in this process.

While researching the topic of community partnerships and collaborations, I came across an excellent resource that I wanted to share – a document tilted museum/community partnerships: Lessons Learned from the Bridges Conference, put out by the Philadelphia-Camden Informal Science Education Collaborative and The Franklin Institute. The Bridges Conference (held in June 2008) invited museum/community partnership programs that serve families to participate in a discussion on what it takes to create and sustain successful community partnerships and collaborations. According to the report, “The Bridges Conference was designed to bring together professionals with long-term museum/community relationships, and to offer opportunities to share and develop new strategies to: 1. address the practical issues inherent in funding, developing, and managing museum/community collaborations aimed at bringing science and math to underserved families, and 2. focus on the unique challenges and benefits of collaborating to work with families. Information shared during the conference was intended to contribute to advancing the field of intergenerational learning and informal science as a whole."

Though this conference specifically focused on science museums and community-based organizations that serve families, many of the themes brought up can apply more generally to all kinds of museum/community partnerships, as well. I found the first section of the report, in which they discuss the main points of the conference itself, especially useful. At the end of this section, they list the takeways that came out of the conference with regards to creating successful, mutually rewarding relationships between museums and community-based organizations. They are as follows:

• Take time to observe prospective partners in action, get to know them fully, and consider possibilities for collaboration before leaping into a formal partnership.

• Ensure that partners share common goals. While two or more organizations may have similar or complementary programs and resources, this is not enough to establish a solid collaboration. Unless all parties share common goals, they may wind up working at cross-purposes.

• Carefully construct a mutually satisfactory memorandum of understanding (MOU) that lays out not only the fact of the collaboration, but also detailed information regarding each partner’s rights and responsibilities; any financial agreements; and processes to be followed in the event that one or more parties wishes to end the association.

• Develop clear and regular procedures for communication, which includes opportunities for formal interaction, and social gatherings.

I highly recommend reading the article in its entirety, as it goes into further detail about each of these points and delves into other topics that relate to museum/community partnerships and their outcomes. The article also addresses certain challenges that go along with developing these kinds of complex relationships, and how to handle them. As to-be museum educators, learning about these various aspects of community partnerships and collaborations will help us to create successful and productive community relationships (both on the organizational and individual level) in the future.

I know it is always helpful to see some real-world museum examples and applications -- two museums that I came across that have quite an impressive list and explanation of their community partnerships (and the events, exhibitions, etc. that they have put on as a result) are the The Tech Museum of Innovation in San Jose, CA and the Minnesota Children's Museum in St. Paul, MN. You can see that each of these museums has collaborated with a variety of organizations that might not immediately come to mind when you think of community engagement in museums, including the American Red Cross and local public libraries. One additional resource that I found particularly relevant and useful in terms of thinking about community partnerships and collaborations is Strategies for Long-Term Community Partnerships by Jim Zien.

Before closing this post, I would like to share a quote from another resource I came across in my research. In Community Partnerships, an article that focuses on community partnerships and libraries, Nann Blaine Hilyard explains that, “Partnering with municipal government, with businesses, and school communities, and working with other community organizations has bolstered our claim of being the hub of the community and proven our relevance to those who fund our efforts. I cannot imagine how we would make our case without their support." Though Hilyard is referring to libraries in her article, we can certainly apply this quote to informal education institutions in general. We all know how important it is for museums to remain relevant and valuable to their surrounding communities. Community partnerships and collaborations can help with this by making museums an important, integral part in a network of community organizations.

As rewarding and productive as these relationships can be, collaboration is hard work. I noticed that Lori brought up a good question on a previous post with regards to advocating for community engagement in museums. It is certainly possible that we may meet some resistance with regards to community engagement in museums. I think that much of this goes back to what we discussed in Carol’s class this past summer with regards to best practices in museums. If you look back to Excellence and Equity: Education and the Public Dimension of Museums (American Association of Museums, 1992), #6 on their list of recommendations is to: “Engage in active, ongoing collaborative efforts with a wide spectrum of organizations and individuals who can contribute to the expansion of the museum’s public dimension." I would say that the best thing you could do to help prepare yourself to advocate for community engagement in museums is to be aware of the best practices and standards for museums, learn the current trends in museums as they relate to community engagement, and explore how other museums are practicing community engagement in with outside organizations, groups of people, or individuals in their communities. In general, knowing how to find the information that will prove the value of community engagement for your museum will be beneficial in this process. The evidence is certainly out there!

Feel free to comment and share some other examples of community partnerships and collaborations that you have seen or learned about! We’d love to hear about them. I would also be interested to hear if you have any other ideas of how to advocate for community engagement in museums in response to Lori's question.

Teacher Workshops

            The primary focus of this blog has been on partnerships between museums and schools and meeting the wants and needs of school age children. In that vein, we have decided the best course of action would be to offer an article on how museums support teachers in their roles as educators.

            One of the most universal and successful ways museums support teachers is by offering teacher workshops. These workshops can fit seamlessly into teachers’ schedules by utilizing the break automatically built into the school year. Many museums offer weeklong workshops in the summer and some, like the Philadelphia Museum of Art, have shorter workshops available during shorter recesses like the winter break school schedule. Many workshops are held over the weekend and rang anywhere from half-day to two day workshops. The National Gallery of Art has a program called “After-School Weekday Sessions,” which works within the teachers’ work-week schedule.

Beyond workshops, some museums offer in-service days during which the museum staff travels to schools to provide costume workshops. Often, these in-service sessions are only offered to schools located within a specific distance from the museum. This means that in-service sessions are not available to all schools and teachers; in fact, the services are actually quite limited. This is unfortunate because the in-service sessions are often the most customizable and, for that reason, may prove to be the most useful to teachers. Logistically it makes sense, but museum staff should strive to reach the teachers beyond the limit of the in-service sessions in unique ways in order to overcome this obstacle.

Other ways that museums try to reach out to teachers is by offering professional and/or graduate school credit for attending their workshops. To offer credit, the museums most be approved as credit providers by the state. For museums in areas that are easily accessible to people from multiple states, it is beneficial to be approved as a credit provider in multiple states. For example, the Philadelphia Museum of Art provides professional credit in both Pennsylvania and New Jersey.  It is also important to note that the number of credits provided per workshop is easily located on the museum’s website and on the handouts related to the teacher workshops.

Museums appeal to teachers by highlighting what makes the individual museum unique and by offering ways to harness this uniqueness in the classroom. Many museums offer workshops on a wide variety of topics and disciplines.  The Philadelphia Museum of Art offers workshops beyond those structured for art teachers. For example, they have workshops on “Art and Autism: Social Stories,” “Looking to Write: Narrative Writing” and “The Narrative Life of Frederick Douglas,” a workshop that is meant to assist teachers who celebrate Black History Month.  In addition, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame conducted a workshop on using popular music in special education classes and workshops on using the spoken word and slam poetry in the classroom.

Marketing the workshops to teachers is an important step in making the workshops successful. Museums have the privilege of providing workshops on a wide variety of interesting topics that are meant to appeal to the classroom teachers. The Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library & Museum offers the following workshops: “Political Cartoons in the Classroom” and “This Damned Old House: Abraham Lincoln and the White House.” The National Gallery of Art has a workshop called, “Can We Talk?! – Facilitating Conservations with Works of Art.” Each of these workshops is easily marketable and is meant to spark the interest of educators.

Aligning the needs of classroom teachers with the offerings of the museums is the most critical step of making a successful workshop. Luckily, there are a vast number of museums who offer highly unique workshops to teachers.  Teachers have many opportunities to find something that might work in their classroom. Museums have mastered the teacher workshop; they offer workshops that work with teacher’s schedules, provide professional credit, highlight the uniqueness of the museum and are appealing and interesting to the teacher.

But they also offer an example that goes beyond the workshop, a model in which the museum educators are the experts. This might be a way to better welcome the classroom teachers in museums. The future goals of museums should be to make a true partnership between the classroom teacher and the museum educator. Hopefully, this relationship can be extended into both the museum and the classroom. I found two examples of museums striving to breakout of the teacher workshop model by offering “Research Colloquiums” and “Roundtables.”

The Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library & Museums has a workshop titled “Research Colloquiums” that consist of teachers working with the museum education department to learn how best to use primary sources and object-based teaching in the classroom. The museum educators show the teachers the tools used in the museum field, such as how to navigate the digital collections and the Presidential Library. The teachers get to experience first hand what it is like to work in a museum and the resources that are available. On the second day of the session, the teachers and the museums educator work to make a personalized lesson plan for the teacher.  By the end of the session the teachers have a fully workable lesson plan that they made using the resources of the museum.

The regular and award-winning “Education & the Arts Roundtables” offer a truly unique spin on teacher workshops. These roundtables allow for a partnership between several museums, such as the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, the Page Museum at the La Brea Tar Pits, and the William S. Hart Park and Museum, as well as selected schools in Los Angeles County, art organizations and artists. The “Education & the Arts Roundtables” strive to “foster deep, interdisciplinary classroom learning, and give artists and educators joint responsibility and authority over their Museum interactions.” The mission of the “Education & the Arts Roundtables” is one that all museums should strive towards when forming museum and school partnerships. It is truly a partnership between museums, teachers, students, and the community where no single member is the expert.

Links:

Education & the Arts Roundtables

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

Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library & Museums

http://www.alplm.org/education/teacher_workshops.html

National Gallery of Art

            http://www.nga.gov/education/teacher.shtm

Rock and Roll Hall of Fame

            http://rockhall.com/education/inside-the-classroom/teachers-rock/

The Philadelphia Museum of Art

            http://www.philamuseum.org/education/teacher_workshops.html

The Benefits of Intergenerational Programming (They're Not Just for Seniors!)

According to Erik Erikson, the primary developmental/psychological event for adults in their senior years is a reflection upon their lives and the imprint that their life has made upon the world. If they look back upon their life and accomplishments as feel a sense of productivity and fulfillment, they will achieve “ego integrity” and attain a sense of wisdom. If they look back upon their life and do not find that sense of fulfillment or purpose, they may fall into despair and be plagued by feelings of regret, sadness, or fear of death.[1]

Intergenerational programs that encourage an interaction between senior adults and schoolchildren can help to foster an increased sense of ego integrity for the senior participants, as sharing their experiences and abilities with the younger generation can reinforce their feelings of accomplishment in their lives. Having these conversations and building these relationships can increase the seniors’ perception of self-worth and can provide a constructive, novel outlet for them.  It can help them challenge and redefine their pre-conceptions about the younger generation and their relationship to them. But perhaps most interesting, it can help them create new relationships that provide a real sense of value and purpose in their later years.[2]

An older woman participating in New York’s Community Agency for Senior Citizens (CASC) Senior Pen Pal program received a letter from a little girl who expressed sadness about her recently separated parents and having to alternate between them each weekend. The woman felt a special connection to this girl and felt that she could be a unique support to her, as her own granddaughter did not have a relationship with her father after her parents’ divorce. The woman used her letters to the little girl to build up the girl’s feelings of self-worth by writing “you are very lucky that your father and mother both want to be with you.”[3] Programs such as this one that encourage intergenerational conversations and relationships offer strong outlets for ego integrity development, as the seniors are creating new relationships that have impacts on both themselves and their partners. The CASC Senior Pen Pal program is now operated by the New York Department for the Aging as Platinum Pen Pals, a partnership between high school students and seniors.

What might not be as immediately apparent is that the benefits for the younger participants are just as far-reaching as those for the elder participants. As modern lifestyles and families change, family members are more likely to live at long distances from each other and children are less likely to be regularly exposed to the older generations of their families or other seniors. When children participate in intergenerational programming that encourages conversations and partnerships with senior citizens, the children create relationships that, at minimum, help them break down stereotypes they may have about elderly people, and at best, provide them with unique, role models that have rich life experience different from their own.[4]

Since 1997, the NewCourtland Elder Services network in Philadelphia has been taking intergenerational programming a step further with “Comfort and Joy: Celebrating Intergenerational Artistic Achievement.” This multi-generational program pairs senior citizens from six area nursing homes, school children, and professional artists to explore and create a variety of different art forms. In 2004, the products of this program, which included handmade dolls, mosaic murals, quilts, documentary films, and even a small scale village that captured the seniors memories of the past.[5] 

To facilitate a positive experience and enhance the opportunities for relationship building, all participants (Seniors, children, and artists alike) attend sensitivity training before beginning the program. These training sessions are designed to help the participants learn positive ways to engage with others and learn from their perspectives and experiences. And indeed, the relationships that result have been strong and have provided great benefit to all participants. According to Pam Mammarella, creator of the Comfort and Joy program at New Courtland, “[b]lending elders with students gives both groups unprecedented opportunities to learn, teach, interact, and react not only to each other, but also with the professionals guiding the various projects.”[6]

The various projects are designed to promote this cross-generational learning, but using students as interviewers who tap into the seniors’ memories and experiences, which are then used to develop the art. In this sense, the students gain unique insight into not only the histories of the seniors, but their personal perspectives as productive, insightful individuals. At the same time, the seniors are learning new artistic and narrative talents through the program. “For many, their lives are now richer and more diverse,” says Mammarella.[7]

Locally, the Kreeger Museum hosts a monthly intergenerational version of its Conversations program for seniors with dementia and their caretakers.   Modeled on the successful “Meet Me at the MoMA” program, Conversations pairs observation and discussion of the museums’ art with poetry and music. The Kreeger hosts four Conversations sessions per month, one of which is an intergenerational collaboration with Sweet Readers, a New York based non-profit that pairs middle school student readers with seniors with dementia. Sweet Readers provides the training for the student facilitators in how to speak about the pieces and relate to the senior audience.[8]

During the 90-minute program itself, each student is paired with a senior couple and the students take an active role in engaging their partners in the discussion. During the session I attended, the senior participants were split into three different rooms, according to their artist preference (Monet, Pissaro, Sisley). Each room was assigned a pair of students. During the program, I observed one pair of students actually leading their groups’ observation and discussion of the paintings, and two other pairs facilitating the seniors’ participation by asking leading questions and providing their own answers to help spark connections for the seniors. 

Derya Samadi, the director of Conversations, encourages the students to take an active role, for example, asking the intergenerational groups to compose a poem collaboratively. During the session I observed, one group composed a haiku in response to depictions of trees in their painting. The students then read the haiku to the full group when they all gathered back together at the end of the program to discuss their observations. Samadi suggests that the Sweet Readers’ 6^th-8^th grade age bracket makes them particularly effective facilitators for the seniors, as they have an appropriate level of maturity and empathy, but are not yet distracted by the concerns that come with high school.[9]

Currently, the intergenerational component of the Conversations program is limited to seniors with early stage dementia, though Samadi notes that she is eager to extend the intergenerational participation to the versions of the program for seniors with late stage dementia as well. The intergenerational version of Conversations has been extremely successful thus far, as can be seen by the high proportion of senior “regulars,” and the low proportion of student regulars. The program is such a popular volunteer option at local schools Holton Arms and Langdon that there is a line to participate all year long.[10]

The Conversations program is held at the Kreeger Museum on the 2^nd and 3^rd Mondays of each month (except for August) at 10:30 a.m. and 2:00 p.m.  The program is free, but reservations are required. Call 202-337-3050, ext. 10. For more information on the Conversations program, click here.

---

[1] Erikson, Erik. (1963). Childhood and Society, 2^nd ed. New York: W.W. Norton & Co. 247-274.

[2] Hopkins, George. “How Important are Intergenerational Programs in Today’s Schools?” Phi Delta Kappan 82. 4 (Dec. 2000): 317-319.

[3] Ibid.

[4] Ibid.

[5] Hoban, Sandra. “An Intergenerational Debut at the Art Gallery.” Nursing Homes. 53, 12. (Dec 2004): 34-36.

[6] Ibid.

[7] Ibid.

[8] Samadi, D. (Nov. 5 2012). Personal interview.

[9] Ibid.

[10] Ibid.

Teen Nights

When designing programs for teenagers, museum educators—no matter how talented, resourceful, educated, experienced, understanding, or creative—are all lacking in one crucial characteristic.  We are not teenagers.  Yes, we once were, but we are no longer.  In fact, many of us have actually put quite a bit of effort into repressing certain aspects of those years in our memories.  As noted in our earlier post about teenagers, adolescence is paradoxically both social and isolating, both confusing and potentially empowering.  We all experienced these feelings to varying degrees, as do teenagers today, but our memories of those trying times do not necessarily resonate with how actual teenagers, still very much in the moment, are processing these developmental advances and conflicts.

When it comes to designing programs for teens, the museums that are most creative and successful at doing so are those that work not just for teens, but with teens.  Museums all over have developed Teen Councils and teen volunteer programs charged with helping the museum bring other teens to their respective institutions through meaningful experiences.  A later post will explore these councils and other programs for highly invested teens in greater depth.

One increasingly common result of these collaborations between museums and teens has been the museum Teen Night.  Catering exclusively to teenagers (usually with a school- or government-issued ID proving so), these Teen Nights often feature live music, DJs, dancing, performances, crafts, art projects, exhibit tours, and gallery activities, blending the social with the creative.  By linking the evening’s activities to a specific special exhibit or part of the collection, the organizers help emphasize and take advantage of the unique qualities of the museum.

For example, at the Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston, the upcoming Teen Night builds the party around the Brazilian artists Os Gemeos by focusing on their inspirations, namely hip hop culture and dreams, through spoken word and break dancing tutorials.  

But even museums with less obviously “teen-friendly” collections can successfully host such events.  By partnering with the Museum Teen Summit, museums, in New York, as diverse as The Frick Collection and the New Museum, have featured similar events.  And museums across the country, with teen councils or consultants of their own, have also done so.

Many of these events also seem to return to the common teen question of identity, whether through art-making and personal expression or gallery discussions.  Teen Nights can further build focus on this theme, as the Brooklyn Museum and We Are the Youth did in creating their Teen Night Event for LGBTQ Teens & Allies.  The organizers used the special HIDE/SEEK: Difference and Desire in American Portraiture exhibit as a launching off point for the event, which featured DJs, voguing lessons, gallery activities, dancing, and performances.  

As Nina Simon writes in a post on her Museums2.0 blog, museums can act as the sort of safe space teens seek and need.  Incorporating opportunities for fun and creative expression only strengthen these qualities.

Teen Nights also provide a way for museums to invite and pique the interests of teens who perhaps do not normally go to the museum.  Teens who do not have the interest or inclination to commit to a teen council or multi-session program have the chance to be involved in the museum for a night.  And if they are so inspired, participants may even seek out opportunities for more involvement or education at the museum.  If anything, Teen Night participants get to have a night to themselves, with friends (a key motivator for teens), to try new things and learn in a special space.

Additional resources and just a few examples of Teen Nights:
The Walters Art Museum
Oklahoma City Museum of Art
Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles
High Museum of Art
“Why Museums Don’t Suck: The Current State of Teen Engagement”

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