March 15, 2010
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The Field Museum of Natural History
The Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago is affectionately called “The Field.” Besides its extensive Exhibits (Permanent, Temporary, Online and Traveling) and its Research & Collections, The Field provides Education Programs. This area is one of The Field Museum’s most active and visible. Included in Education Programs are Field Trips for teachers and students, Outreach Programs, Online Learning, Professional Development for teachers, and the Harris Educational Loan Program. A trip to The Field for classrooms of kids or families is a fascinating trek into natural history that teaches science and about scientific discovery as well as historical perspective. But even if you can’t go to Chicago and physically visit The Field Museum, you can make a virtual visit through its Web site and its various online resources. Technos spoke recently via email to three officers in the Education Programs group: Monica Garcia, Manager of Teacher Programs and Partnerships; Vickei Hrdina, Manager of expeditions@fieldmuseum®; and Beth Crownover, Public Programs and Operations Director.Monica Garcia, Manager of Teacher Programs and Partnerships
T: Which programs do you manage within the Education Programs at The Field Museum? And what are the Partnerships you’re involved with?
M.G.: Each of us in the Education Department specializes in one area. I focus on Teacher Professional Development, which consists of customized in-services, teacher multi-interdisciplinary workshops ranging from three hours to 25 hours in length and for grades PreK12. I also manage the Museum’s Field Ambassador Program, which has been in existence for seven years with 334 Chicagoland teachers who have completed a year-long residency program mastering the Museum’s four academic disciplines (anthro, botany, geology, and zoology)—thereby becoming strong liaisons to their schools by disseminating information, resources, and best practices around object-based learning. The Field Ambassador program also has two arms: an Advisory Council of 17 teachers who meet monthly to help with Museum-wide initiatives, special projects, teaching, writing curriculum, and a variety of other needs to help guide our work in the Education Department; and, new this year, is our pilot Core Partners Program, which consists of 12 schools that were selected based on an application and criteria developed by Museum Educators to participate in a more in-depth partnership with the Museum. They are assigned a Field Museum Educator to do extensive outreach which integrates the Museum into individual school initiatives throughout the school year. Currently, the Museum is not accepting new schools but rather is focusing on the Core Partners and maintaining the cluster mentioned earlier.
In addition, the partnership part of my position includes local, statewide, and Midwest reaches. At the local level, multiple partnerships with the nine museums in [Chicago’s Museum] Park occur in collaborative teacher workshops at various sites. The Field Museum has partnerships with Chicago Public Schools, specifically CMSI and Museum Partner Science Programs (MPSP) in grades K4 and 58 focusing on Earth, Life, and Physical Science. For the first time, the Museum has partnered with Chicago WebDocent (CWD) out of the University of Chicago, developing over the last two years an interactive module in which students and teachers can view the Museum’s Africa Exhibition before and after visiting the Museum to prepare students for a focused field trip.
Our regional partnership, Environmental Education Initiative for Underground Adventure (EEIUA), focuses on science and environmental education and involves six organizations/institutions from Iowa, Missouri, Indiana, Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Illinois. The objective is to exchange best practices for learning and teaching about environmental education in the Midwest.
Last fall (2005) The Field provided a series of teacher workshops and student presentations to complement the National Geographic Live! Speaker Series. Were they successful and, if so, will more be planned for next fall?
The National Geographic Live! Series has been one of our most highly respected and attended programs at the Museum. Teachers explore best practices through our third collaborative, The Illinois Geographic Alliance, by learning geography standards through hands-on activities in the exhibitions related to the lecture. Last fall was a great success, and we will continue to offer both fall and spring programs for teachers.
Who develops your instructional design and standards correlations?
Our curriculum writing and instructional design is a full collaborative effort. Each guide or lesson is developed directly linking to one of our permanent and/or temporary exhibitions here at the Field Museum and is reviewed by a team of people on individual projects, usually consisting of educators, interns, volunteers, content specialists, departmental curators, project managers, public relations officers, and sometime external partners or sponsorships.
Are you involved with the Harris Educational Loan Center? If so, please tell us about the types of materials that are available for loan there?
In all of the teacher programs, teachers participate in a 30-minute introduction to the Harris Educational Loan Center* and how to use the oldest teacher lending library in the United States. This program is one-of-a-kind, and the extensive resources available to teachers range from over 900 exhibition cases, 120 themed-based experience boxes, audio visuals, CD-ROMs, printed curriculum guides, children’s books, and customized in-services specific to themes.
What is the most popular Teacher Program at The Field Museum? How many students come through The Field each year?
We see about 1,700 students a day on field trips, and I would say that most teachers come to see our dinosaurs and mummies; however, the Native American collections and the Pawnee Earth Lodge are highly utilized.
What new instructional materials are available having to do with the Evolving Planet exhibit? Do you expect this to be a popular exhibit?
Our Evolving Planet (EP) will be a key destination for teachers and students. Wendy Taylor was hired specifically to write curriculum for this permanent 27,000 square-foot exhibition. The guides will be launched in tiers. All of our guides are available online in PDF format, so teachers can begin preparing their students prior to visiting the Museum. Each guide consists of an introduction; teacher notes; ILS; vocabulary; guiding questions and answers; pre-, during, and post activities; resources for teachers and students; sample activities; fun facts; and a walking map. For this exhibition, a full-color, front-and-back poster was created as well as Harris Educational Boxes have been updated to align with the current information in the exhibition.
What, if any, reaction to the Evolving Planet exhibit have you had, or do you expect to encounter from teachers (evolution v. intelligent design debate)?
The Museum is a scientific research institute and uses the scientific method for discovering patterns of evolutionary relationships among species based on shared special similarities. Evolving Planet addresses evolution as an accumulation of inherited changes in populations of organisms over the course of generations. Over time, these inherited changes can result in entirely new species. The Museum respects cultures and different beliefs from around the world and celebrates cultural diversity through our anthropological collections, such as our Native American, Pacific Spirit, Africa, and Inside Ancient Egypt Exhibitions, to name a few.
What is the process to coordinate Teacher Programs with The Field’s major exhibits? What programs are you working on now (spring 2006) for next year? Do you plan according to academic calendars?
Our programs are directly driven by our permanent collections and temporary exhibitions and aligned to most academic school calendars. For spring, we are gearing up for King Tut and our full programming slate for summer, which consists of multiple 3 to 5-day collaboratives with the American Indian Center, The Chicago Botanic Gardens, The Lincoln Park Zoo, The Oriental Institute—and the first since 1999, we are taking teachers abroad to British Columbia for 9 nights/10 days to immerse them in the rich culture of the Pacific Northwest.
What education, background, and experience do you have that made you the right person for your job?
My background is so different; I can’t really answer this question. It wasn’t like I sought out to be an educator; it sought me out, and I landed here after working multiple jobs, degrees, and life experiences.
Email Monica Garcia at mgarcia@fieldmuseum.org.
* For more Harris Educational Loan Center information, contact Mara Cosillo-Starr at 312-665-7555.
Vickei Hrdina, Manager of expeditions@fieldmuseum®
T: Tell us about the expeditions@fieldmuseum® Web site … Who is it targeted to? How are the Expedition Web pages developed? And can teachers and students, as well as parents, or anyone interested in the topic of the Expedition, utilize the site?
V.H.: expeditions@fieldmuseum® came about as a result of our guests inquiring into how we obtained collections and conducted research around the world. Our Anthropology Department Chair and Curator, Dr. Gary Feinman, began writing emails from his research sites to interested members and teachers to keep them informed about research as it was happening and before it was published or hit the news. The idea of real-time coverage of field research was a hit with the public and teachers and those interested in science but who maybe had taken another career path.
The museum sought funding to expand the program, and in 2001 expeditions@fieldmuseum® was born. We began with Dr. Feinman’s research in Oaxaca, Mexico, because that’s where the following began and because it’s a long-term project that we could revisit. Now, projects are selected based on several criteria: 1) Does the scientist have an interest in working with the public? 2) Will they have time and capabilities (technologically speaking) in the field to devote to writing emails, sending photos, perhaps filming video and uploading it to a server? and 3) Can the public connect with the research?
The scientist usually approaches me with a project but if I hear about something cool getting ready to go to the field, I’ll work to persuade that person to get on board. Once that’s solved, I work with the scientist to write all the copy for the Web page, usually working off of previous publications they have made and translating this into something we all can understand. Then, our Web master and interactive programmer meet with the scientist to decide on how best to represent the work visually they will do in the field. Once those details are fleshed out, I fill in the gaps in content — writing captions, credits, etc. Finally, with time permitting, I develop curriculum to support the expedition content. The Web sites are intended for a general audience, but more and more we are focusing on teachers and homeschoolers with the idea that learning directly from scientists takes away some of the mystery and intimidation that often accompany learning science for kids.
What new Expeditions are planned for Spring and Summer 2006?
From late March to the end of June, Gary Feinman will report from his archaeological dig in Oaxaca, Mexico. From April through June, Mary Hennen with the Chicago Peregrine Monitoring Program will be online. And from late June to early September, Ryan Williams in Cerro Baul, Peru, will report from his archaeological dig there.
What has been the most popular Expedition? What sort of feedback do you get from teachers and students about the topics?
Our Peregrine Falcon expedition has been the most popular in the long run, I think because people can actually participate by watching out for birds in the neighborhood. Oaxaca, Mexico, has a longstanding audience of people who are interested in observing the change through time of a project. Two years ago in Cerro Baul, Peru, Ryan Williams attracted international attention when he uncovered one of the world’s earliest breweries, and that dramatically increased the audience. These reasons all make a successful expedition, but we’ve never had an unsuccessful project. Each discipline has a unique following, and I take that into consideration when marketing the programs. Teachers have responded that their students love the idea that someone halfway around the world is writing directly to them on a weekly basis. It’s very personal, and there’s really nothing else like it that I’ve found.
Will a Web site be developed to correlate with the Evolving Planet exhibit?
Nothing in the works currently. Though we have done "on-site" expeditions, such as with Bill Stanley, Curator of Mammals. This was a great way for people to come behind the scenes at the museum and see what’s going on upstairs. We have many people working on evolution in the museum, so it’s certainly a possibility.
If you were a classroom science teacher or homeschooling parent, how would you utilize expeditions@fieldmuseum®?
First, I’d sign up to get the emails. For younger kids, you’ll have to read some of the information and guide them through some of the concepts covered. The curriculum that is available instructs you how to use the different areas of the site, and I’m trying to catch up with the expeditions we don’t have learning materials for as of yet. Mostly, I think the interactive maps are key because you can track the scientist’s research through time and it’s almost like a scavenger hunt. Teachers can easily design inquiry-based virtual field trips or even Web quests on any of the programs we have. I’m happy to offer suggestions to teachers or homeschoolers on any of the expeditions as well.
What education, background, and experience do you have that made you the right person for your job? What advice would you give someone who is interested in education, science, museum management—and technology—as to what course of study to follow in college to get a job like yours?
I have a B.A. in Anthropology with a focus in Museum Studies, an M.A. in Applied Anthropology with a focus in Education, and will have my teaching license in the next year. I’ve worked in archaeology all over the western United States and Northern Mexico and spent most of my time educating the public about what was going on at our sites. Anyone who has a passion for science and really wants to work with the public in a nontraditional sense should consider taking a dual-degree program—perhaps obtaining a degree in their chosen science field while getting a teaching certification, or a museum education certification, which many schools now have. Also, volunteer in museums as early as possible to get comfortable translating higher-order conceptual material to the general public. As for technology, I’m self-taught and still learning!
Email Vickei Hrdina at vhrdina@fieldmuseum.org.
Beth Crownover, Public Programs and Operations Director
T: Which programs do you direct within the Education Programs at The Field Museum? How can parents access and utilize those programs?
B.C.: My team and I are in charge of all the programs that do not involve schools and teachers; essentially—adult courses, lectures, off-site field trips, gallery programs, family workshops, overnights, and summer camp. A comprehensive listing of this season’s programs can be found in the Calendar of Events section of our Web site. Registration for all of our fee-based programs is taken through our Booking Office, which can be reached at 312-665-7400.
What is the most popular Education Program at The Field?
Our Dozin’ with the Dinos program is the most popular. We plan 13 of these overnight events per calendar year. They run concurrent with the school year, September through early June. They are for families and groups with children ages 6 to 12. Each overnight has special workshops, self-guided exhibition hunts, a performance, late-night storytelling, and more.
What new materials are available having to do with the Evolving Planet exhibit?
The most expansive material available is the Educator Guide, a portion of which can be downloaded.
What is your philosophy on evolution?
At this point, the theory of evolution is the most widely researched and scientifically supported theory. As a professional representative of a scientific/research-based organization, I support this theory.
What is the process to coordinate programs with The Field’s major exhibits?
We plan one year in advance. Our programming is engineered to highlight active museum research by our scientific staff, our permanent collections, and our temporary exhibitions.
What education, background, and experience do you have that made you the right person for your job?
I have a bachelor’s of liberal arts [degree] with a double major in history and religion and an emphasis in education. I have been in informal education for about 10 years, planning and executing programs for all ages. Museum/Informal Education requires a balance between strong educational rhetoric and event planning and know-how. You also have to be a people person—I encounter a member of the general public audience at least 10 times per day.
Email Beth Crownover at bcrownover@fieldmuseum.org.
Read more about The Field Museum in our Featured Article.