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Hi Claire --
I wrote my museum studies master's thesis on historic house museums that have implemented creative ways to make drop-in family visits more engaging and more conducive to family learning.
Two house museums that really impressed me (because they did very creative things with minimal budgets and without endangering their historic collections -- no small feat in a historic house) were
-- Bradley Home Museum, run by the Midland County Historical Society in Midland, MI. A completely hands-on historic house museum -- wow. Visitors can poke around in the ice box, play music on the parlor Victrola, try dressing a mannequin in reproduction clothing in the proper order. Love love their approach. http://www.mcfta.org/A_MCHS.html
-- Tinker Swiss Cottage Museum in Rockford, IL. http://www.tinkercottage.com/. They added hands-on baskets of reproduction and generic antique objects to nearly every room, so they can be both a hands-on museum and a showcase of exception antiques. And their objects are multisensory -- toothpowder to smell, a stereoscope to look through, an ice cream fork you can guess the function of. Very low-tech but promotes intergenerational activity and active socialization in a low-tech, surprisingly effective way.
Good luck with the project!
Best,
Leslie
Leslie Goddard, Ph.D.
Exhibit Developer
The Morton Arboretum
4100 Illinois Route 53
Lisle, IL 60532
tel: 630-719-4888
fax: 630-719-7956
[log in to unmask]
www.mortonarb.org
>>> Claire Grothe <[log in to unmask]> 12/2/2010 8:50 AM >>>
ISEN-ASTC-L is a service of the Association of Science-Technology Centers
Incorporated, a worldwide network of science museums and related institutions.
*****************************************************************************
Good morning!
Apologies if you've seen this before, as I've posted it to a couple
other listservs in recent months.
I'm with the USS Constitution Museum, and we're currently looking for
examples of innovative, exciting, successful family programs.
In 2008, we received a 21st Century Museum Professionals grant from the
Institute of Museum and Library Services entitled Engage Families!
Encouraging Family Learning Across the Nation. The three-year project
continues the work of a 2004 IMLS National Leadership grant, which
explored family learning techniques in museums.
Engage Families! seeks to continue this research and disseminate it to
museum professionals nationwide. One facet of this outreach is the
collection and online publication of 100 successful family programs from
around the country. We're currently at about 70, counting those profiles
already being developed, but obviously, there's still plenty of work to
be done.
If your institution-or an institution you know of-does a fantastic
program that promotes family learning, please tell us about it. We will
contact the museum, conduct a short interview, and based on this
information, compose a one-to-two page write-up for the museum's
approval. The "success story" will then be posted to the Family Learning
Forum website.
If you have any questions regarding the Engage Families! project or the
success story component of the project, feel free to contact me at
[log in to unmask] A number of success stories are
already available for viewing at
http://www.familylearningforum.org/programming/successstories/.
Thanks very much for your time!
Best,
Claire Grothe
Intern, Family Learning Across the Nation
USS Constitution Museum
P.O. Box 291812
Boston, MA 02129-0215
[log in to unmask]
(617) 426-1812 ext. 1812
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For information about the Association of Science-Technology Centers and the Informal Science Education Network please visit www.astc.org.
Check out the latest case studies and reviews on ExhibitFiles at www.exhibitfiles.org.
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