Push a button on the wax figures to hear George Washington Carver, Pocahontas, or Thomas Jefferson speak. Walk through a long house bustling with Native Americans and imagine fire hollowing out the 25-foot canoe. Examine a 12-foot-long painted mural replicating the work of artist Frida Kahlo.
Is this school? Or are these museum exhibits? In fact, the answer to both questions is yes. These exhibits are the work of student curators who have transformed their schools into museums. Recognizing the parallels between the instructional methods of museums and those of schools, programs such as Museum-in-Progress and Kid Curators educate students and teachers in the techniques of creating museum-like exhibits in their schools using state and national academic standards as a foundation. The goal of such programs is to create environments that inspire in students a passion for learning.
A school museum gives students a purpose for learning: to create an exhibit. One student observed,Putting this [exhibit] together was more challenging than reading a textbook to answer questions. Being interactive made it fun.
Creating a museum exhibit requires students to do research, write, analyze various points of view, solve problems, and make collaborative decisions. Such active learning strengthens students' academic and social skills and heightens their engagement in the project.
Students take on various responsibilities in the course of developing exhibits, including acting as tour guides on opening night, when the entire community is invited to visit the museum. As exhibit experts, students must be ready to educate their peers and the public about their work. Sharing their exhibits with an audience that extends beyond their classroom teacher galvanizes students to produce exemplary work.
Developing a Focus
School museum content may address a specific unit of instruction or focus on concepts that cut across disciplines. Fourth grade teachers at Bailey's Elementary School for the Arts and Sciences in Falls Church, Virginia, developed the idea of the school's museum to meet state standards that require students to study 500 years of Virginia history. Students created an interactive exhibit, “A Walk Through Virginia's History: 1500–2000,” that included information about the technological, architectural, recreational, and agricultural developments of the period. Students worked in small interest groups to conduct research, collect evidence from primary resources, create models, portray historical figures, and devise ways to present their learning in engaging ways.
Teachers at Atwater Elementary School in Shorewood, Wisconsin, transformed an annual student art event into a student-curated museum project, “Fiesta del Arte.” Students explored the art and cultures of Hispanic people to create exhibits that addressed the question, How does art communicate culture? Art, Spanish, social studies, and language arts teachers worked together to integrate related research and writing projects into the school's curriculum. Students created text panels—many translated into Spanish—with cultural and historical information that complemented the original student artwork on display in the school museum's Pre-Columbian Gallery, Gallery of Contemporary Crafts, and Gallery of Modern Art.
Learning to Convey the Message
A museum field trip can help students identify those qualities that make an exhibit effective. Guided by the same questions that museum curators ask themselves—such as What components of the exhibit capture and maintain your interest? How are different displays arranged to convey key ideas? and How do colors and lights direct your attention to the artifacts?—students search for exhibit design elements that most effectively convey a message. Students need not visit a museum similar to the one that they plan to create. Even searching for effective display techniques in shopping malls, grocery stores, office lobbies, and libraries can help students recognize the importance of certain design elements.
Back at school, students brainstorm criteria to guide their own exhibit design. Criteria might include, “Uses primary source information accurately,” “Presents different points of view,” and “Enriches what the visitor already knew, teaches the visitor something new, or changes the visitor's ideas about the topic.” Students then use these criteria to maintain exhibit quality as the project unfolds.
Using Authentic Resources
Students can find original resources in libraries, museums, and the community. As Bailey's Elementary students prepared for their exhibit on Virginia's history, for example, the school's media coordinator noticeda profound change in students who had never spoken nor paid much attention during their library time. Once they were assigned to research a historical person, these students became keen on asking for help in locating primary resource materials, especially quotes, and pictures showing what the person wore.
Bailey's Elementary students also took photographs of historic tools during a field trip to the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of American History. Students addressed a state science standard when they used the photographs to help them identify the simple machines that powered early technologies. For their exhibit, students constructed models of the machines that drove windmills, spinning wheels, seed drills, and water wheels. They displayed the models alongside student drawings of early machinery in operation, the tool photographs, and copies of such historical documents as patent records.
Students preparing exhibits study and interpret primary source materials, replicating the research techniques of professional curators. Bailey's Elementary students found an image of slaves chained and crowded together on a trading ship particularly moving and decided to use it in their exhibit. Students also incorporated excerpts from Julius Lester's book I Am a Slave, a compilation of oral histories from former slaves. In an effort both to inform visitors about slave conditions and to encourage visitor responses to the exhibit, students asked visitors for their written reactions to the displayed image and book excerpts. After opening night, students analyzed visitor feedback to determine current attitudes towards slavery.
In addition to museum artifacts and primary source documents, valuable human resources often surface as projects develop. Inviting parents and community members to participate in the project and apprising them of specific opportunities for involvement might yield unexpected dividends. When Atwater Elementary students began their study of Hispanic art and culture, performance and visual artists from the community served as valuable resources. Students gained insight into the relationship between art and culture when a local visiting artist used the sculpture that he had created in honor of his deceased grandparents to explain the significance of the Day of the Dead, a Mexican holiday on which families remember their deceased loved ones.
Telling Complex Stories
School museums, like their professional counterparts, juxtapose artifacts and experiences to build connections and explain concepts. Students construct sequential displays to communicate a coherent body of knowledge. Although individual students or small groups may have immersed themselves in researching a particular issue or question, they must attempt to connect their ideas with those of their peers during the exhibit installation process to tell a multifaceted story that visitors will understand.
After conducting research at Sully Plantation, a local “living history” museum, several interest groups at Bailey's Elementary chose to illustrate different characteristics of a slave's daily life on a plantation during Virginia's colonial period. The architecture group painted a mural depicting a slave's quarters. The recreation group collected musical instruments resembling those played in Africa. The agriculture group made models of foods produced on the plantations of the period. Not until they brought these components together did students realize that their display did not convey the message of inequality that the students had intended. Finally, they resolved to broaden their original concept to compare basic needs as seen through the eyes of a slave and those of a slave owner. After checking their references, students painted a second mural, this one of the inside of a plantation house, and displayed both murals next to each other.
Atwater Elementary students read the children's book Abuela, by Arthur Dorros, about the flying powers of a Hispanic American girl and her grandmother. The story inspired students to write their own myths. They created paintings to illustrate their stories and displayed them in the school museum. In addition, students wrote descriptive captions in Spanish for each piece of artwork.
Becoming Curators
As opening night draws near, student and community excitement inevitably mounts. Just as parents and other visitors gain a new appreciation for students' abilities when they view the museum displays and listen to their tour guides' explanations, so students gain confidence in themselves and a deeper understanding of the subject matter as a result of their active engagement with the material. Commenting on Atwater Elementary students' Fiesta del Arte exhibit, Superintendent Jack Lineham said that he sawart and culture presented in a high-quality yet age-appropriate way. I saw 2nd graders confidently teaching their parents about the language, the specifics about the art style, and history.
One Atwater Elementary student commented,I like that we could say, “I did that.” Also, we got to use our creativity, which I can't do when studying a textbook. Visitors said “awesome” at all of the effort we put into our exhibit.
Creating exhibits for their school museums can teach students how to be critical consumers of information, to investigate relevant issues and questions, to strive to make connections between ideas, to demonstrate what they have learned creatively, and to teach others. The school museum experience transforms students into curators—educators to their entire community.
Starting a School Museum Project
What will students learn as a result of being involved in this project?
What will visitors learn as a result of touring the school museum?
Research museum content and interpret primary resources.
Brainstorm ways to present their learning.
Install museum exhibits, including appropriate signs.
Study the entire museum's contents, including the work of classmates.
Host an opening event.
Act as museum tour guides to classmates and the visiting public.
Assess their learning and that of the exhibit visitors.
A school museum project could last from several months to an entire year, depending on the scope of the project; the number of students, classrooms, and grade levels involved; and the amount of instructional time invested in the project.
Association of Youth Museums (<LINK URL="http://www.aym.org">www.aym.org</LINK>)
Bailey's Elementary School for the Arts and Sciences (<LINK URL="http://www.fcps.k12.va.us/BaileysES/museum.htm">www.fcps.k12.va.us/BaileysES/museum.htm</LINK>)
Brooklyn Children's Museum (<LINK URL="http://www.nysca.org/bcm.html">www.nysca.org/bcm.html</LINK>)
Exploratorium (<LINK URL="http://www.exploratorium.edu">www.exploratorium.edu</LINK>)
Mammals in the Schools, a program of the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of Natural History (<LINK URL="http://web8.si.edu/nmnh/education/mis_dream">http://web8.si.edu/nmnh/education/mis_dream</LINK>)
