In May, three of our staff attended the annual Association of Children’s Museum conference. All together, Justine Roberts, Executive Director, Paula Rais, Director of Community Engagement and Jane Bard, Education Director, presented in 5 conference sessions on topics ranging from museum business models, to how to create inclusive programming, to facilitating STEAM (Science Technology Engineering Arts and Math) activities with visitors. It was wonderful to be able to lead discussions about topics that matter to us, and to talk with our colleagues about how they do things. In addition, there were talks by John Seely Brown and Leila Gandini to inspire our thinking.
Among the many exciting and often provocative ideas we heard, those below have continued to resonate and are influencing our thinking:
We are a Children’s Museum for FAMILIES
At the conference, we heard from colleagues around the country that families are looking for rich experiences to have together, and adults want to be engaged with their kids not just watching them. We need to provide opportunities for adults to interact in the Museum, and find ways to support the adult role in the Museum experience.
This was great to hear. We believe that the Museum experience is at its best when the entire visitor group interacts joyfully and creates a shared 
memory. Research has shown the importance of adults in children’s learning, and also in the development of their interests. Consumer studies show that adults who are bored opt out of repeating experiences.
And trend analysis has shown that adults want to enjoy their children – they made the choice to have them, and they are determined to appreciate the time they have together. We have also heard from our own visitors and members that they want more family programming.
It isn’t too late
Another big conversation was around engaging children in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) related studies. Research shows that if a child isn’t interested in science by age 11, it is difficult for them to make a switch and become engaged. What can we do to ignite interest in science for young children?
We run a program called Junior Science for 4-5 year olds. As one participant’s mother said to us this past year:
“Its like my daughter had all of these ideas about how the world works, but didn’t have the tools or 
vocabulary to describe it. This class has given her those and it’s a huge ‘WOW’.”
Based on the success of that program, we are considering launching a second class for 5-7 year olds.
We also added lego robotics this year, and have been doing more to fuse science and art in the Thinkering Lab – where you can design and test cars and ball runs – and in the Studio where you can investigate structure, color, natural materials, light and more in artistic ways.
One area we believe the Museum can really participate in making science engaging is by showcasing its drama, and its surprisingly unexpected delightfulness. We see science in the everyday world around us and one of our goals is to help capture that and make it visible to others.
Wide Walls and High Ceilings
Shifting demographics in this country will have an impact on our current and future audiences. Studies have shown that 90% of museum-goers are Caucasian while ethnic populations in the United States continue to grow. In addition, it turns out that museum-going is passed on within families; you are more likely to visit museums if you were taken to them as a child.
Since Children’s Museums are not as common in the rest of the world as they are in the United States, we need to work additionally hard to be visible to, and accessible to immigrant and first generation audiences who may not be familiar with what we do. One way we do this is through the schools, but increasingly we are looking for opportunities to kids who come with their class to return with their families as ambassadors to the Museum.
Cultural diversity is not the only emerging demographic shift of significance for museums. The adult/senior population is growing and 60% of seniors participate in childcare of their extended families. This raises important questions about how we can target this group more and provide more amenities for them.
We don’t have the answers but we do have a lot of questions! One is what are their needs and interests? Another is how can we engage seniors more in playing with their children in the exhibits? – put adult size costumes/props w/ the green screen? Ask them to recall favorite ways to play when they were young? Promote photographing the kids playing/learning by putting more photos on our website and/or in house bulletin boards (People stop all the time to look at the staff/volunteer bulletin board in the hallway!)
Getting it Right: inclusive and accessible programming
In the areas of inclusion and accessibility we already operate on a foundation that places the child’s learning process and creativity as central. This is important for all children- those with special needs certainly, but also for typically developing children. All children have different skills, strengths and interests. Our expertise is in 
designing environments which are layered for learning over time, and which are scalable in complexity as visitors gain mastery.
But really being inclusive and accessible goes further than this. A theme among keynote speakers at Interactivity was how learning is about imagining and tinkering so you can figure things out – this is great to hear because this is what museums are good at!
“Arc of life learning honors child + adult” - J. Seely Brown
“Adults should be more attentive to a child’s cognitive process than the results they achieve.” – Loris Malaguzzi, founder of Reggio
CMNH does a great job with this, but how can we help parents and teachers engage more and notice the learning taking place for children in their care? can we ask questions (through signage, or experience guides) that encourage observation? Point out the kinds of milestones they might witness (esp. in Primary Place) that could go unnoticed? De-emphasize “craft projects/products” and highlight creative process and how to continue this at home?
I would love to see more for parents about how to continue the process for making something at home. Often times, we make a project at your museum, and…..
So allowing for things to be done, that can then be brought home and used there. In your photos, you showed a nature sun catcher – brilliant! Those are things we can make at home, and discuss about why we can or can’t see through certain things. But information on how to have those discussions with our kids might be helpful too. Sure, we can research it on the internet, but who has time, really, when you’re chasing kids around.
The Junior Science program sounds like fun – but even as a member, it’s expensive, but also, we don’t live in Dover, so it’s hard for us to get our daughter to programs like that unless its on the weekend. It would be nice to have a day program or half day program that does something similar, but can be offered on the weekends for people that want to attend, or have their kids attend but can’t make it during the week offered.
Great blog post though – I love to see the museum thinking about how to grow and better fuel young minds!
Thank you so much for your thoughts! It would be interesting to try some kind of Recipe for Play that has ideas for what else you can do when you get home. We do really want the Museum experience to translate to home. It will always be different to be at the Museum – it is larger than most houses, you can get messier, there are other people around which makes it social, and it is a designed environment – but a lot of the materials we work with are humble. And that is intentional because we really believe that inspiring a reinvention of the everyday, a kind of everyday WOW, is powerful. After all, kids will need to reinvent their world as they grow and as the world changes.
As far as the half-day weekend programs go, that is great to hear. Last year we launched the Second Saturday Series with a lot of studio art, cooking and robotics classes. We have been talking about making sure science has a bigger presence this year. So it is good to know there is interest in that!
Thanks for reading our blog and for helping strengthen our programming!
Great article, what do you think the first 60 days of a new science educator should be doing? How do I get staff to think out of the box?
Maria – We do a lot of shadowing for the first few weeks so that, in addition to the training in visitor services, customer service and museum specifics we can use modeling and real-time scenarios to help our folks get into the culture of the organization. We also have just started a schedule we are very excited about which gives each Educator an hour a day for research and planning. Some of that time is used for training but some of it is for them to start figuring out how to bring their ideas into their job. Our goal is to give our educators as much ownership over the visitor experience as possible so that they can adapt what they are doing to the situation or the visitors they encounter. Its in their job description to innovate, experiment, and customize visits. But its also in our schedule to ensure they have the tools and time to think necessary. What do you do?