The use of primary source materials to teach history has been on the upswing, so we incorporate those materials into our educational programs for schools, and encourage the use of them in the classroom as well. Because it is sometimes difficult for teachers to bring their students physically to the museum, there has been more of a need to adapt our in-house programs, in particular the writing programs, and tailor them for the classroom. Recently I have been seeing more of a demand for writing programs on the middle and high school levels. Organizations other than schools, e.g. Girl Scouts, are also looking for writing programs, so we offer those programs for all levels of Girl Scouting.  We even had a dance teacher bring her young dance students to the museum for one of our writing programs, in an effort to give them a more well-rounded educational experience.

Teachers want to “bring history alive” for their students, so they have been coming more often for living history programs and tours, especially from the private school and homeschooled sectors.

There is certainly a trend toward having more information available online, though we always want to encourage people to experience the real thing in person if at all possible.  Because not all interested school groups have the means to travel to our site, there will be a need to make more lesson plans and virtual visits available online for teachers.

At the Museum of Science, we are always focused on creating universally designed experiences for our visitors.  Lately our museum educators have been spending a lot of time learning about visitors with special needs, in particular folks on the Autism Spectrum Disorder, as well as our early childhood learners. We have been consulting experts in school districts and academia to help us in our thinking. In response to several new insights, we have been augmenting our experiences, especially our programs and presentations, to be more inclusive of these audiences.

I think our work with social justice issues will continue to grow in the coming years. Our museum educators are becoming increasingly aware of the disparities and inequities amongst our visitors, and we will strive to embrace all learners’ experiences and connections to STEM experiences.

Museums are playing their part in the renewed focus on free choice play in a child’s development. This trend is nothing new and is part of a larger societal “swinging back of the pendulum” from the last three decades of structured learning and teaching to the test.

 The era of children milking the family cow, floating the Mississippi on a handmade raft, or playing in piles of rubble in post blitz London are long gone. Even the days of simple community based activities such as walking to school, building forts in the woods, and biking the neighborhood have disappeared at the hands of fear-infested media, sprawling, car-dependent villages, and the modern diasporic family. We can push blame further onto the school’s focus on testing, the addiction to technology, and organized sports. Strong voices arguing to free the overscheduled “kid in a bubble” and their “nature deficit disorder” include the proposed legislation such as No Child Left Inside and authors like Richard Louv and David Sobel.

As a profession museums are responding to and perhaps compensating for this lack of free-choice, outdoor time with an increased focus on play and nature based spaces. While I’m thrilled to see this trend it gives me pause that the simplest type of experience for a child (opening the door and going outside) has been supplemented by a consumable experience at museums, parks, and playgrounds. While museums should be a leader in modeling this type of open-ended play and exploration, the question remains: how can museums help children (and in proxy their parents) build the confidence to explore the world independently?

While the free-choice, nature play space is a wonderful beginning, museums need to build a child’s independence through authentic experiences. Experiences that place the child as the doer, not just the selector. Museums are increasingly working to give children real life experiences such as putting the soldering iron into the child’s hand, teaching the child to identify and report the rare butterfly, and letting the child spark the flint, alighting the campfire into flame. My hope is that museums, historic sites, and conservation lands will continue giving children authentic experiences, offering freedom to explore, and equipping them with real world skills.