Jerry Flack
The creation of student-designed children's museums is one of the most exciting ideas that has surfaced in the field of education of gifted and talented youth in recent years. The author has worked with several teachers in the creation of classroom or school-wide museums designed and operated by students. The praise for such projects from participating teachers is unanimous. Motivation soars. The excitement of creating terrific products that are going to have a genuine audience is catching. Importantly, most of the motivation is intrinsic. Children take pride in their museum creations which eclipses considerations of letter grades. Classroom museum experiences build bridges to the future and life-long learning. Museum visitation is essentially an intrinsically motivated activity. No one offers external rewards to people for appreciating culture. The museum-building experience expands appreciation for museums in general and all they have to offer.
The application of a wide array of valuable skills in student-built museum projects is observable to the teacher, administrators, parents, and the community. Cooperation among students is heightened. Students enjoy collaborating to build displays and exhibits which are larger, grander, and more intricate and involved than any they could individually achieve. Students develop real respect for the intelligences and talents of others. Yes, Charles has read more about beasts and dragons than anyone else in the class, but he develops a fresh appreciation for Sandy's drawing skills when his storehouse of knowledge about beasts is magically transformed into great statement for a classroom exhibit about creatures found in fairy tale literature. Teachers who facilitate student-produced classroom museums report enormous pride and pleasure in the end results of their students' efforts.
Interactive museums, children's or otherwise, serve to prick the slumbering curiosity and creative potential of all students. Museum exhibits should be dynamic and participatory. Gifted and talented students working as museum curators use a cornucopia of vital skills and talents when they create museum environments that are positive and accepting, inviting, and curiosity-provoking. Creativity very definitely reveals itself in the production of learning materials and interactive exhibits. Student experiences in designing and constructing museum exhibits provide opportunities to develop and showcase their talents. Further, imaginative museum exhibits tempt all participants to explore creative thinking and stimulate the creation of imaginative products.
The creation of student-designed and operated children's museums is a splendid culminating activity in any extended study. Once students have deeply and thoroughly explored important subjects and have learned new skills, they can combine their new knowledge with their heightened skill development to produce tantalising exhibits that benefit all. Students who have studied natural history can utilise creative problem solving (CPS) steps to determine the big idea or theme of a dynamic nature museum exhibit. In addition to content knowledge, students can employ creativity processes such as SCAMPER (substitute, combine, alter, minify/magnify, put to other uses, eliminate, rearrange) to drive their creative thinking in designing and planning exhibits for the museum for which they will be personally responsible.
Real obstacles students may face are issues of size, scale, and space. Students have observed dioramas in natural history exhibitions that are enormous. Real specimens in an arctic diorama may include polar bear, seal, arctic fox and even beluga whales placed in a replica of their vast arctic habitat. A single natural history museum diorama can be as large as several school rooms. Today, many schools are bursting at the seams and space is at a premium. Securing a vacant classroom for a single display, not to mention an entire exhibition, is an impossibility. Such constraints, however, need not be defeating. Students can apply attribute listing and SCAMPER techniques in planning their displays. First, they consider the attributes of good natural history dioramas. These attributes include animal or plant specimens or representations, habitats, and captions. Next, students apply the SCAMPER tool to their 'problem'. How might they use such concepts as 'minify' and 'alter' to their advantage? Where a natural history diorama may be enormous in scope, the student-created diorama can present the same basic attributes in a miniature environment which may be as small as a shoe box or even a matchbox. The resulting product demonstrates how a potential problem is converted into a positive opportunity to create a first-rate museum display.
Other tools that are staples in gifted and talented classrooms, such as Bloom's Taxonomy (knowledge, comprehension, application, analysis, synthesis, evaluation) will be especially useful to students when they decide the level of thinking they want museum visitors to employ. Just as teachers use the action verbs (name, list, create, categorise) of Bloom's Taxonomy to design questions and activities in instructional planning, so too students can activate the list to determine the level or complexity of thinking they desire visitors to their museums to utilise. Of course, student museum exhibit designers are always mindful of the multiple intelligences (linguistic, logical-mathematical, naturalist, musical, spatial, bodily-kinesthetic, interpersonal, intrapersonal) that people have and they build exhibits which are multi-sensory and appeal to and make use of many kinds of intelligences and talents.
A culminating project for a group of talented young students who have studied fairy tales might be the creation of a fairy tale museum. Teams choose particular fairy tales such as Cinderella or Jack and the Beanstalk and build exhibits around their featured tale. One group of students may build an exhibit demonstrating the world-wide appeal of 'Cinderella' stories, while another group creates an exhibit focusing upon the Brothers Grimm, their best known tales, and German life and culture during their lifetimes. A group of students can create a 'Beauty and the Beast' museum with several exhibits featuring different tales of Beauties and Beasts found in cultures all around the world.
A bestiary museum might be the culmination of a unit on fairy tales, mythology or fantasy. Teams focus on particular beasts such as the lion in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe (Lewis, 1994), or the Minotaur from Greek mythology. Students may also build on works such as Graeme Base's The Discovery of Dragons (Base, 1996), in which the popular Australian illustrator (writing as scientist Rowland W. Greasebeam) provides the 'natural history' of such dragons as the Great Snow Dragon of Greenland and the St George's Dragon of English fame. The students can provide answers to such questions as: Why have people believed in dragons through the ages? How are dragons of Chinese culture different from the dragon slain by St. George of England? Of course, student-created museums need not be limited to fairy tale or fantasy content.
Museum researchers (Dean, 1994; Serrell, 1996) stress the importance of labelling strategies which provoke positive social interaction among visitors. Teachers can emphasise the point that labels at an exhibit need not be just declarative sentences. Provocative exhibits may involve questions to stimulate discussion among visitors. Striking labels for a 'Beauty and the Beast' museum exhibit may present critical thinking questions about the fairy tale that will promote lively discussions among visitors. A display or interest area exhibit featuring Beauty and the Beast movie posters, large student drawings of characters and scenes from the fairy tale, and a variety of book versions of the tale may serve as the backdrop for thoughtful questions designed for interactive engagement. How might fairy tale museum visitors respond to the challenge to use their critical thinking skills to answer questions boldly labelled and illustrated in a 'Beauty and the Beast' gallery poster such as follows?
Can you flex your thinking muscles?
Answer these questions about Beauty and the Beast.
There is no 'right' way to pursue the museum-building approach to learning with students. Strategies will vary according to time constraints, the age and maturity of students, and other factors. Ideally, when circumstances allow, preliminary activities involve class field trips to museums and presentations to classes by museum personnel. Field trips can take on special meaning when teachers prompt students to note promising museum display practices as well as the content of particular exhibitions. What presentations do they enjoy? What factors make them inviting? How do museums use space both within exhibits and throughout the entire facility? How does the museum handle traffic flow? Note all the different ways artifacts may be displayed (e.g., suspended from the ceiling; placed on a pedestal). Are labels positioned at a variety of eye levels? What sizes and styles of print fonts make for ease and enjoyment of reading by museum visitors? How important is colour in museum exhibits? Are some particular colours used more often than others? If so, which colours? Are the colours and textures of walls and other backgrounds important factors in museum presentations? If entire classes cannot visit area museums, ask student volunteers to visit museums with their families, note particularly effective exhibition techniques and report their findings to the class.
Museum personnel or docents (volunteers) familiar with the acquisition, preservation, and exhibition of museum collections may be able to come to the school and share specimens and artifacts with classes as well as profession 'secrets' about exhibitions. Their expertise and familiarity with exhibitions can be most significant in alerting students to the ways and means of fashioning exciting interactive museum experiences for their prospective audiences.
Dean (1994) outlines four phases of the museum exhibition development process that suggest stages students can also follow. They are: conceptual phase, development phase, functional phase, and assessment phase.
In the first phase, curators, educators and others gather ideas, determine exhibition scope, and consider schedules. The developmental phase is divided into two stages, planning and production. Planning involves setting goals, researching, estimating costs, appropriating tasks and creating educational and promotional plans. Production entails preparing and mounting the exhibition and opening it to the public. The functional phase addresses the operation and maintenance of the exhibition, preventing deterioration of displays, providing security, and having plans for dismounting the exhibition. The assessment phase may involve writing a report about the success of the exhibition as well as noting improvements to be made in future museum exhibitions.
These four phases of museum exhibition development can serve students well in their planning and execution of their own museum exhibitions. Indeed, one of the goals of museum creation for students should be their parallel development of time management skills and responsibility. When working with students, guiding questions for each phase may help students remain focused on their multiple tasks.
Conceptual Phase: What is the big idea (see below) of your exhibition? What do you want your museum exhibition to mean to people? What pleasures do you want your parents to derive from their visit to your museum?
Development Phase: What kinds of exhibit will you have? Is there a budget? Who is responsible for what display materials, labels, invitations, etc? How much time is available for construction of exhibits and their subsequent set up? What resources are needed for the creation of exhibits?
Functional Phase: When will the museum open? Who will conduct tours? Will there be live demonstrations as a feature of the exhibition? If so, what classes will need to be missed? What permissions need to be secured in advance? What maintenance and preservation efforts are needed (e.g., care of animals such as gerbils)? Who will help dismantle the exhibition when it is completed? Who will be responsible for returning borrowed items? Are there special people (e.g., school custodian) who should receive thank-you notes?
Assessment Phase: How will the success of the classroom museum exhibition be judged? What, if any, data will be collected? Is a formal evaluation report required? If so, who writes it and when is it due? What has been learned from the museum exhibition experience?
Serrell (1996) states that all exhibits and labels within them are doomed to failure if there is not a big idea to serve as the driving force and purpose of the exhibit. The big idea supplies an exhibition with its meaningfulness. Big ideas also provide focus to all people involved in the exhibition. The big idea becomes the tool that provides all the team with a common focus and goal. Big ideas need not be declarative statements. Good interactive labels and captions provoke thinking often with big ideas introduced as questions. For example, the big idea for a 'Beauty and the Beast' Museum might be: 'What is Beauty?' Each team can then determine how it wants to structure a display that will help visitors answer the question. One team, for example, may note the visual beauty found in various illustrators' versions of Beauty and the Beast.
A big idea or big question for a school or classroom museum focused upon many different fairy tales might be posed more broadly: 'Why Do Fairy Tales Last?' A team using Cinderella as content may help visitors answer the question by accentuating the popularity of 'rags to riches' stories, both real and fanciful. Another team may illustrate the universal desire of parents to secure the safety of their children through a sharing of global, multicultural versions of Little Red Riding Hood.
Of course, museums and the big ideas that drive their exhibitions need not be oriented solely to fairy tales. First-graders in one Iowa classroom build a Grandparents Museum with this big idea: 'Grandparents Are Great!' Students bring pictures and three-dimensional objects to school which celebrate their grandparents. They also paint pictures of their grandparents. All the artifacts make up the unique museum which is celebrated with a grand opening on the occasion of a Grandparents' Day Tea.
Two Colorado sixth-grade teachers coordinate a student-produced museum exhibition about oceans. The big idea is 'The Oceans and Man'. Teams of four to six students interpret the big idea in many different ways. One team approaches the big idea or theme from the perspective of how humans pollute and endanger the oceans. Their museum provides a diverse display of information about man-made ocean disasters. Visitors can perform a quick interactive science experiment, floating cooking oil on water and cleaning up the 'spill' with paper towels. Another team approaches the big idea from a completely different perspective, highlighting ways humans have been inspired by the sea. One of their exhibits displays posters and book copies of Hans Christian Andersen's The Little Mermaid. In one corner of their exhibit a VCR continuously plays the Walt Disney animated film of Andersen's tale. A third team focuses on ship disasters, including the presentation of models, books, and informative posters about the sinking of the Titanic. Because these students attend a parochial school, a fourth team built an exhibit around references to how the Bible speaks of the seas.
Once students have selected the big idea which drives their museum efforts, they can conduct research and plan the displays to be featured in their museum. In museum planning, students need to take into account the importance of the understanding that museums are people places foremost. Good exhibitions help people achieve a sense of belonging. Good museum exhibits are also multi-sensory. Visual elements in exhibitions are especially critical. Bright colours and bold graphics capture and hold the people's attention. Sounds, tactile opportunities, and even smells help bond people with exhibitions, too. Labels and captions should tell stories and conjure up lasting images for visitors. Often, contexts and frameworks for objects help visitors best learn about them. There should be a story line which unifies the exhibition.
Good exhibits are visitor-friendly. Beverly Serrell (1996: 47) writes:
Students should recall the exciting, interactive nature of first-class exploratory museums. Students can then seek ways to make their displays interactive. Are there things visitors can touch? taste? smell? Are there simple experiments visitors can perform quickly? Are there important questions to provoke critical or creative thinking? Can visitors make a quick product to take away with them?
Although teachers may not like the idea of evaluating students' museums, accountability is a reality for both students and teachers. A wise teacher may encourage her students to engage in self-checks, such as answering questions about their museum products prior to final submissions. A museum exhibit self-check list for an individual or team of students might look like this:
Give yourself 1, 2, or 3 points per item, with 3 being advanced or world class.
Bonus Points
Please explain why you feel you earned these bonus points.
Most student-created museums found in classrooms or school buildings are temporary exhibitions. At Pine Valley Elementary School on the grounds of the United States Air Force Academy in Colorado, in the United States, resource teacher Caren Kutch has fashioned, with much student input, a Wilderness Museum that is entering its fifth year of existence. When the school's principal asked teachers to salvage any stored materials they needed from the school's 'junk room' a few years ago, Caren asked and received permission to turn the newly vacant classroom into a school museum centred upon two big ideas: (1) introduce all children to wilderness concepts and experiences; (2) structure all the activities and experiences in the museum on Howard Gardner's Multiple Intelligences theory. Teachers, parents, community members (especially senior citizen volunteers) and students contribute to the exhibits and displays in the interactive museum. Volunteers built a tree house, teachers constructed a butterfly tree, and students created myriad products for the museum.
One class of second grade students worked much of a year on a sustained science, reading and art project that led to the final completion of shoe box and grocery box dioramas, each featuring a wild animal in its natural habitat. Early in the school year the second graders were immersed in a literature study of animals in the wild. Each child picked an animal he or she wished to research and come to know thoroughly during the school year. As the students learned more about their respective animals of choice, they first made sketches of the animals and their environments. Then they fashioned colourful paintings of their animals. Next, they moulded clay models of their animals which were painted and subsequently fired in the school's kiln. Using the ceramic animals as models, the students finally created larger papier mache replicas of wild animals. Using construction paper, pipe cleaners, and other art supplies, the students finally completed cardboard box 'environments' of such places as prairies, the Arctic, and the Everglades. When the students were satisfied with the look of their shoe box wild environments, the wild animal papier mache 'specimens' they created were placed within the dioramas and the completed dioramas were placed in the school's Wilderness Museum for all the other students and community members to enjoy. Everyone who visits the museum is mightily impressed at what the second graders were able to create in this sustained, year-long activity.
The second-grade nature dioramas are but one of the student offerings found in the school museum. Older students choreograph and present interpretive dances about trees, or write and perform plays about protecting the environment. A particularly clever dramatic presentation involved an 'Academy Awards' television presentation for nature, staged and presented on several occasions. The best film of the year in the students' live museum performance was Forest Stump. A tall 'tree' who received the best actress award appropriately thanked the sun and the rain for helping her 'grow into my part'. Fittingly, the trophies which winners received in the dramatisation were seedling pine trees planted in decorated coffee cans. Students rightfully take enormous pride in their contributions to the school's museum whether those contributions be environmental dioramas, posters, or wilderness games they invent.
Again, the projects students complete at Pine Valley can serve as models. Just as Pine Valley students created wild animal dioramas, other students may create fairy tale dioramas. Children select favourite characters from fairy tale literature and favourite scenes in which they appear. They use the processes described above to end up with shoe box dioramas which feature their characters in appropriate settings.
There is no limit to the possible exhibits and artifacts talented youth can create for their own museums. The following student prompts suggest types of activities and products that may be tailored to particular fairy tales or to other museum topics or 'big ideas'. For example, a grocery bag puppet may take the appearance of the fairy tale characters Snow White or Hansel, but such puppets can also be created as props and artifacts in student museums devoted to the study of wild animals or dinosaurs. A grocery bag puppet might take the form of a coyote who explains, in a live performance for visitors, its life in the wild and its contacts with humans. A similar dinosaur puppet could share facts about its existence on Earth long, long ago.
No funds for a school trip to a museum? No problem. Turn talented students into museum creators themselves and produce classroom and school museums that are first-rate and will be remembered by the curators and producers for a lifetime.
Base, G. (1996) The Discovery of Dragons. New York: Harry N. Abrams.
Dean, D. (1994) Museum Exhibits: Theory and Practice. New York: Routledge Kegan and Paul.
Lewis, C.S. (1994) The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. New York: Harper.
Serrell, B. (1996) Exhibit Labels: An Interpretive Approach. Walnut Creek, California: Altamir Press.
Jerry Flack, is President's Teaching Scholar and Professor of Gifted Education at the University of Colorado, Colorado Springs, USA. Jerry is the author of several excellent books and numerous articles on teaching gifted and talented children.