2016 NYCMER Annual Conference: Intersections

Cultural institutions work with sensitive or difficult topics on a regular basis. When approaching such topics, educators must consider both the needs of students and adults, and how those needs might differ. Join Education Specialists from the National September 11 Memorial Museum for a discussion focused on this delicate balance. Presenters will share the challenges faced when addressing the needs of students, for whom 9/11 is history, and adults, for whom 9/11 is a memory, and share strategies for how to address this tension when teaching sensitive material with diverse audiences.

Engaging very young children in art museums can be challenging, and families and institutions alike may struggle with or shy away from such experiences. This poster presents a program designed to provide meaningful and positive experiences for babies (6-18 months) and caregivers in art museums, and an example of its successful implementation at Dulwich Picture Gallery in London, U.K. Through compelling images and testimonials, this poster explains how the program was tailored for a gallery and its specific needs, responding also to broader contextual questions around early childhood explorations of art and education programs in museums. 

Many educators from informal science institutions strive to teach basic science through an interdisciplinary approach, but not often does that approach include the intersection of natural history and cultural studies. WCS’s Predators: Biology & Conservation professional development course strived to showcase the importance of science and social studies, demonstrating to a diverse audience of teachers of various subject and grade bans that the intersection of those subject areas provides a unique and meaningful way of deepening student learning of the natural world. The planning processes and lessons learned will be highlighted in this poster presentation. 

The Museum at FIT receives 100,000 visitors a year. Despite being a college museum, a small percentage of those visitors are actual FIT students. This presentation will explore how The Museum at FIT’s education department created a college volunteer program to engage students within our museum

SciPlay from the New York Hall of Science will discuss how the New York City community informed the design of an early childhood app, Picture Dots, which aims to facilitate playful intergenerational mathematics, science, and literacy conversations. This poster presents how SciPlay play-tested Picture Dots activities with diverse families at World Maker Faire in New York City, which inspired the creation of a preliminary learning activity guide. Presenters will engage the audience with a hands-on introduction to the app and discussion of its potential as a storytelling tool.

The Hall of Northwest Coast Indians is The American Museum of Natural History’s oldest hall— opening in year 1900. Although visitors were first welcomed more than 100 years ago, the hall remains as it first stood—preserving the revolutionary thinking of it’s curator Franz Boas, Father of American anthropology. For scholars, the hall is an artifact—and should be treated as such. For the visitor, the hall is dark, dusty, old. For the museum educator, it’s display and interpretation is outdated. AMNH reconciled these competing claims via impactful, on-site programming—intersecting the historical with the contemporary in “Artist in Residence: Haida Manga in the Museum” bringing the hall and it’s artifacts to life.

Designed both for museum practitioners wondering about how to incorporate more theory into their day-to-day practice, as well as museum studies students with questions about how to make theory more approachable, this session, hosted by the NYCMER Student Peer Group, explores the intersection between abstract theories and on-the-ground practice. Current Museum Studies students will deliver brief summaries of their thesis research, sharing not only their specific research interests (ranging from early childhood education, the relationship between curators and education, to integrating national educational standards), but also their theoretical inspirations, and the practical applications of their research. Participants will have an opportunity to discuss questions they have about incorporating theory into their practice, and guided by our student panel, brainstorm solutions together.

Listen and share your stories about the struggle to survive in the museum field, and how this impacts our work, open mic style! How can museums diversify staff and volunteers while relying on free volunteer labor? How can we reflect our audiences when museum pay does not reflect the NYC cost of living? BBG staff will share their changing volunteer program model, and how it has expanded the diversity of volunteers beyond retirees and those who can afford not to work. As a group, we will brainstorm creative solutions to the challenges museum educators or volunteers may face at our home institutions.