In the past few years, museums and their role in the community has become a topic of interest. I would strongly argue that children’s museums are one of the best venues for promoting civic engagement and healthy habits because the target audience is young and impressionable. The sooner children are made of aware of issues such as healthy lifestyles and giving back to their community, the better the chance they have of implementing and retaining such ideals into adulthood. Children’s museums have the opportunity to address these issues in ways that are fun and engaging, which has the potential to create a greater impact on the child.
Children’s museums can provide knowledge about everything from healthy eating habits to multi-cultural awareness and acceptance. A great example of this is Good to Grow!, a program sponsored by the Association of Children’s Museums. This program is designed to address and prevent childhood obesity. The ACM encourages children’s museums to stress the importance of physical activity and healthy eating. While only four children’s museums in the US are currently designated as Good to Grow! museums, many others are taking steps towards promoting healthy habits.
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| Getting some exercise at the Creative Discovery Museum in Chattanooga, Tennessee! |
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| The little kayaker from above can participate in some other great activities too! |
Another great topic is sustainability and environmentally friendly habits. The Children’s Museum and Theatre of Maine has an exhibit entitled, Tree to Timber. This exhibit explores sustainable forestry in Maine in a fun and age-appropriate manner. Many other museums have exhibitions about the importance of protecting the environment. In addition, many are taking steps towards creating greener buildings by installing solar panels, low flow toilets and sink aerators, and motion sensor lights.
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| Turning the conveyor belt at the sawmill! |
Other popular topics include disability awareness, multi-cultural appreciation, and being an active participant in the local community. So what do you think? Should children's museums try to be civically engaged and promote healthy lifestyles or should they just let "kids be kids" and play with bubbles and glue sticks?
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ReplyDeleteThis is my first time hearing about some children's museums are actually trying to be civically engaged. In my opinion, I think this is definitely a good way that museums could approach to children. Also, it adds more into children's museum experiences. However, I think Children's museum should be aware of how they want to be civically engaged. Probably designing civil program in a fun way is helpful for children to understand museum's messages.
ReplyDeleteI think kids can be kids *and* learn civic engagement. If they were learning how to make protest signs, that might be another story (kidding), but I see nothing wrong with teaching some environmentalism and conservation, after all, it's their environment they're inheriting anyway! Additionally, where some schools are so focused on teaching to standardized tests, this may be the kids best exposure to some topics like that, and they don't even know that they're necessarily learning by playing.
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