Museum/University Ecology: An Earth Day Example from a Children’s Museum

ABSTRACT

The purpose of this article is to describe the process and products associated with a successful Earth Day collaboration between a children’s museum and a university education department. Using the idea of an “educational ecology” as a metaphor, we illustrate the collaborative development and implementation of this event hosted and funded by the museum, designed by an interdisciplinary group of pre-service educators, and geared toward the development of local ecological and conservation knowledge for area 1–3rd grade students. A diverse array of day-of assessments, designed by the pre-service teachers, museum educators, and the university course instructor, indicated positive impacts across participant groups. We argue that the one-day nature of this type of museum/university collaboration makes it an ideal scalable model for other small museums interested in developing collaborative partnerships geared toward increased education and outreach capacity. In addition, our findings extend upon the research on teacher education/museum collaboration by bringing increased attention to the ways in which children’s museums, largely absent from discussions on university partnerships, can contribute to the development of future educators.

KEYWORDS:

• Teacher education
• children’s museums
• collaboration
• elementary education

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

About the authors

Sara Clarke-Vivier, M.Ed., is a Ph.D. Candidate in Curriculum and Instruction at the University of New Hampshire, where she teaches Educational Psychology to pre-service teachers and graduate teaching interns. Her research is in the areas of teacher education, public pedagogy, and university/museum partnerships. She has presented her research on museum collaborations at national and regional conferences in education and museum and visitor studies.

Jane Bard, M.Ed., Children's Museum of New Hampshire President, has been with the museum for 21 years. She previously served as the Associate Director and Director of Education. Jane has developed and directed the organization’s education-based programming, including bringing NH’s first Maker Faire to the state. She served as co-chair of the New England Museum Association’s Children’s Museums Professional Affinity Group, and has presented at numerous regional and national conferences.

Notes

1 Martinello and Gonzalez, “The University Gallery as a Field Setting,” 16.

2 Russell, Knutson and Crowley, “Informal Learning Organizations.”

3 Ibid., 262.

4 Other school/museum collaborations have been discussed using similar systems-understanding models. For example, in his 2014 article “Clarifying the Complexities of School-Museum Interactions,” informal science researcher Jim Kisiel argues for a conception of these collaborations as existing within “communities of practice” where mutual engagement, shared goals, and overlapping relations characterize boundaries between educational institutions. The success of collaborative work at the boundaries of these communities is contingent on understanding the complexities of each community, and navigating the issues of communication, authority, and capacity that emerge from within and between each partnering organization.

5 Filipovic, “Necessarily Cumbersome, Messy and Slow.”

6 Clarke-Vivier, “Design and Development in a Children’s Museum.” For a complete analysis of the student snapshot reflections, request a copy of the author’s manuscript (under review) “Design and Development in a Children’s Museum: Pre-service Teachers Reflections on Learning in Museum Fieldwork Experiences.”

7 Klechtermans and Ballet, “The Micropolitics of Teacher Induction,” 106.

8 Ibid., 105.

9 Silverman and Bartley, “Who Is Educating Whom?”