Our next survey response is from someone who has done K-12 programming/outreach in pre-program and post-program! Read about the ways they engage both children and adults using hands-on activities and visual tools!
Thank you to our survey-participants for such great answers! So many professionals are doing incredible K-12 programming. Our goal is to share these experiences with the conservation community and help inspire others to develop and/or participate in their own outreach programs. We are still interested in hearing more about your different experiences, so if you are an emerging conservator who has participated in K-12 projects, please fill out our brief survey: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/KKJJPL6
Please briefly describe the type of work or projects you did related to your K-12 programming, activities, and/or outreach, including where and what year the activity took place.
I work at a museum. I have a table at our annual Halloween event with a sort of two-tiered educational approach -- photos and technical information about treatments and testing for the adults, and a cleaning activity for the children. I make a fake artifact every year for the kids to practice cleaning with a cotton swab. We've done this with fake artifacts such as an Egyptian tomb painting, a Mayan relief, the portrait of Dorian Gray (you remove his curse by cleaning off the older Dorian and revealing the younger one), a mirror in a gilded frame, and the haunted painting from "Ghostbusters 2." Last year we also did a cleaning demo of a real artifact (obviously with a conservator working on it and not a kid). The parents are always kind of mystified that suddenly their kids WANT to clean something, but I point out that some people just need to be presented with a cursed artifact in order to feel properly incentivized. I have also done a lot of "Skype a Scientist" talks about animal hair microscopy; kids love to have their minds blown by seeing internal structures within hairs under microscopy, believe it or not.
As a pre-program docent, I frequently gave tours to school groups and fielded questions. I used to give tours at a museum as a docent prior to getting into a conservation program. We also had an "open day" during my MSc. in which my primary role was to entertain the families who visited the labs so that my classmates could continue working on their treatments.
Can you describe a moment that stood out or favorite memories when doing these projects? Can you describe what was most challenging about each project?
I really love to hear from parents that they are amazed their normally attention-deficient kid is totally locked in to cleaning one of our fake demo artifacts. It's particularly heartwarming when a kid wants to have their photo taken next to the object to show off their progress on it.
I like to ask kids what questions they have about an artifact or material, then validate them by telling them they are asking the same kind of questions that scientists, archaeologists, and conservators do. This was particularly successful in an archaeological museum that had a model of an Iron Age house, because kids usually wanted to know where the toilet was and got scolded by their teachers for asking, whereas "what's the bathroom situation" is actually a super important academic question.
From these experiences, what advice would you give to other conservators about doing outreach and activities with children or young adults? What worked well? What did NOT work?
In my experience, when you have a table or booth with an activity, it works well to have multiple levels of educational material available for different reading groups, and let them independently select which one is most appropriate for them. It is also a good idea to look up relevant terminology in Spanish beforehand. People love printed handouts and touchable objects (if appropriate). Your written messaging should be as succinct as possible, because a wall of text will look like too much work to many visitors, and they will just move on instead of reading it. If you have a puzzle for them to solve, make the directions extremely simple. Don't be surprised if some kids ask you whether girls can or cannot be scientists, just respond "yes, anyone can be a scientist" calmly.
If a kid is acting out -- heckling, cutting in line, etc. -- I recommend asking "are you having a 'silly day'? I can tell. Now let's go do [activity]." This acknowledges that they are not acting constructively without imposing judgement on them, and simply redirects them. Usually the kid will go along with this with no problem.
I recommend people sign up for Skype a Scientist and work on reaching groups of students who may find it difficult to visit a cultural heritage institution in person (either due to geographical location or financial constraints). Kids are very receptive to learning about conservation, and aren't as shy about yelling WHOA at a good before-and-after as adults are, which is a real ego booster for the early professional. Giving the same talk repeatedly to school children also gives you a lot of practice in general, which is very valuable if you tend to suffer from stage fright at conferences when you need to present.
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