kudos Affiliates! summer 2011

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As summer heats up, so do Affiliate accomplishments.  Way to go Affiliates!

The Perot Museum of Nature and Science (Dallas, Texas) has received a $4.4 million gift from the Texas Instruments Foundation bringing the total within $29 million of its $185 million fundraising goal.

The African American Museum in Philadelphia was awarded $45,000 from the John S. and James L.Knight Foundation, as part of a community-wide contest to inspire and enrich the city entitled Knight Arts Challenge Philadelphia. The program entitled “RAAMP It Up Wednesdays” will showcase local artists by presenting commissioned dance and gospel performances through free weekly concerts at the museum’s Seventh Street Plaza.

The Putnam Museum (Davenport, Iowa) was awarded $35,000 by the Davenport Riverboat Development Authority for an upgrade to the River, Prairie and People exhibit at the museum.

The Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) announced Michigan State University Museum (East Lansing, Michigan) was one of 31 awards for the Conservation Project Support Grants. Michigan State University Museum was awarded $87,816 to rehouse 16,179 mammal specimens into museum-quality cabinets. In addition, the grant will fund students to assist with project activities.

The Chabot Space and Science Center(Oakland, California) received a grant worth $1.8 million from the Betty Moore Foundation, to develop the Bill Nye Climate Lab exhibition and website, designed to support the science education of youngsters.

The Connecticut Community Foundation awarded Hunt Hill Farm (New Milford, Connecticut) with a $10,000 grant for a New Talent Arts Initiative, to offer professional opportunities to young artists.

The National Museum of Dentistry (Baltimore, Maryland) has been awarded a Give Kids A Smile Champion Grant from the ADA Foundation, and an additional award by the DentaQuest Foundation to help provide every first grader in Baltimore City public schools with educational resources to enhance children’s oral health, and to ensure good oral health practices, particularly those from low-income families.

The Rubin Museum (New York, NY)  has been awarded a $270,000 grant from the Henry Luce Foundation for the study of Tibetan Buddhist painting.  The three-year grant will advance the work of David Jackson, a renowned scholar on Tibetan Buddhist painting and a consulting curator at the Rubin.

Four Affiliates were winners of the 66th annual Leadership in History Awards, the most prestigious recognition for achievement in the preservation and interpretation of state and local history by the American Association for State and Local History (AASLH):

USS Constitution Museum (Boston, Massachusetts) for The Family Learning Project.
Greensboro Historical Museum, Inc.  (Greensboro, North Carolina) for the exhibit Voices of a City: Greensboro, North Carolina.
North Carolina Museum of History  (Raleigh, North Carolina) for the exhibit Behind the Veneer: Thomas Day, Master Cabinetmaker.
Museum of History and Industry (Seattle, Washington) for the multimedia project MOHAI Minutes.

 

Coming Up in Affiliateland in June 2011

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Summer is in full swing with great events at Affiliates!

NATIONWIDE:
The Smithsonian’s Latino Center hosts its Latino Young Ambassadors in June, which brings students to Washington, DC for a week of cultural enrichment programs.  Following their Washington week, the Ambassadors will return to Affiliate sites for month-long internships in their home communities. 
Participating Affiliates include: Museum of Latin American Art (Long Beach, CA); California Science Center (Los Angeles, CA); Chabot Space and Science Center (Oakland, CA); Miami Science Museum (Miami, FL); Adler Planetarium (Chicago, IL); Museum of Flight (Seattle, WA); Museo de Arte de Puerto Rico  (San Juan, PR); International Museum of Art and Science (McAllen, TX).

Northwest Museum of Arts and Culture

WASHINGTON:
The Northwest Museum of Arts and Culture celebrates 10 years as an Affiliate with an award ceremony featuring Affiliations Director Harold Closter in Spokane, 6.2.

GEORGIA:
At the Controls exhibition of cockpit photographs of aircraft and spacecraft from the National Air and Space Museum opens at the Tellus Science Museum in Cartersville, 6.4.

CALIFORNIA:
National Museum of Natural History Museum scientist Rusty Russell leads a citizen science program with the Riverside Metropolitan Museum in Riverside, 6.11 

PUERTO RICO:
A workshop on “Linking the Museum to the Classroom through Education” will take place at the Universidad del Turabo in Gurabo, 6.23-25.

NEW YORK:
Monica Smith, Exhibition Program Manager at the Smithsonian’s Lemelson Center for the Study of Invention and Innovation, will give a public lecture on the history of the electric guitar at the Long Island Museum in Stony Brook, 6.26.

kudos affiliates! march 2011

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As winter thaws into spring (hopefully!), it’s great to see these accomplishments in Affiliateland.

The Walmart Foundation has donated $38,838 to the Las Vegas Natural History Museum. The funds will be used to improve its live animal and marine life departments.

The Paul G. Allen Family Foundation has awarded the Northwest Museum of Arts and Culture $30,000 in funding for an upcoming series at the museum titled “Visions and Voices.” This grant is for the exhibit, “Ric Gendron: A Good Journey,” which will pair Gendron, one of the region’s top local artists, with Oregon writer Elizabeth Woody.

The Massachusetts Cultural Council announced Plimoth Plantation as a winner in the Creative Learning category of the 2011 Commonwealth Awards, honoring exceptional achievement in the arts, humanities, and sciences. The museum will bring a love of Shakespeare to the town of Plymouth and surrounding area with the innovative program: “One Play, One Community: Romeo and Juliet.”

affiliates help smithsonian and MIT solve mysteries

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Helping the Smithsonian solve a mystery about a fictitious environmental disaster – doesn’t that sound like fun? 

A preview look at the Vanished site, a curated alternate-reality game

Smithsonian scientists have teamed up with MIT’s Education Arcade to engage middle-school students to do just that, in an online alternate-reality game.   Vanished will kick off on April 4 at vanished.mit.edu.  In the course of 8 weeks, students ages 11-14 from all over the country will collect clues on- and off-line, and form a scientific community to help Smithsonian scientists test hypotheses and solve this mystery.  Thanks to the Smithsonian Center for Education and Museum Studies, a range of scientists from entomologists to paleontologists will host videoconference sessions with players, mentoring them through their scientific discoveries.  (Read more in this USA Today article.)

Where will students collect the real data from their hometowns, to share with Smithsonian scientists?  Many will look to their local Affiliate for clues.  According to MIT game designer Caitlin Feeley, “a kid in Kansas could go to the Kansas Cosmosphere in Hutchinson and bring back information on space exploration, and a kid in North Carolina could go to the Museum of Natural Sciences in Raleigh, walk through their incredible diorama, and bring back information on how a lost species massively affected an entire ecosystem.”  In fact, 17 Affiliate museums are partnering with the Smithsonian and MIT to offer clue-gathering opportunities for gamers.  “The Aerospace Museum of California is excited to partner with the Smithsonian and MIT in this unique educational opportunity,” says Linda Payne, the Museum’s Education Director.  “We are certain that Vanished will stimulate students’ interest in scientific exploration and problem solving.”

The game, made possible by a grant from the National Science Foundation, hopes to capitalize on the popularity of shows such as CSI to offer a specific kind of scientific problem-solving for students.  “The kids are actually doing science,” says Elizabeth Cottrell, Smithsonian geologist and director of the Smithsonian’s global volcanism program.  “They are going to have the ‘Ah, I get it,”. moment for themselves.”

Thanks to the Smithsonian Affiliates who will help students find those “Ah hah” moments… right in their own neighborhoods.

Affiliate partners for Vanished:
Mid-America Science Museum, Hot Springs, AR
Mary Brogan Museum of Art and Science, Tallahassee, FL
Buffalo Bill Historical Center, Cody, WY
Kansas Cosmosphere, Hutchinson, KS
The Museum of Flight, Seattle, WA
Schiele Museum of Natural History, Gastonia, NC
Aerospace Museum of California, McClellan, CA
Putnam Museum, Davenport, IA
Heinz History Center, Pittsburgh, PA
South Florida Museum, Bradenton, FL
Virginia Museum of Natural History, Martinsville, VA
Kenosha Public Museum, Kenosha, WI
Museum of the Rockies, Bozeman, MT
Museum of Dentistry, Baltimore, MD
South Carolina State Museum, Columbia, SC

“Vanished” in the news:
USA Today: Interactive game ‘Vanished’ doubles as an educational tool

ArtDaily.org: Smithsonian and MIT Partner to Turn Kids into Scientific Investigators

kudos affiliates! february 2011

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Affiliates start the new year off right with news of support.  Nice going!

Jack S. Parker, a former Vice Chairman of the General Electric Company, made a legacy gift to the Heard Museum’s (Phoenix, Arizona) endowment through the Maie Bartlett Heard Society, the Heard’s planned giving program. Parker’s gift included a $1 million cash annuity and a $1.6 million American Indian art collection bequest. The Heard Museum also received another significant gift with the donation of the Santa Fe Collection of Navajo Rugs from Dr. Charles and Linda Rimmer. The 77 Navajo textiles, created in the late 20th century, represent many styles hand woven by some of the most accomplished Navajo weavers.

Two Manitowoc couples and maritime enthusiasts donated $10,000 for the installation of three vintage MK-14 World War II torpedoes on the USS Cobia docked at the Wisconsin Maritime Museum (Manitowoc, Wisconsin). The project is part of the ongoing restoration of the Cobia, a restored WWII submarine on display.

The Telluride Foundation awarded $15,000 to the Pinhead Institute (Telluride, Colorado) to support its science-based educational programming.

The Miami Science Museum was awarded a $75,000 grant by Chase to implement the Girls SPICE (Science Program Inspiring Creative Exhibits) project. The grant will allow the Museum to work with Charles R. Drew Middle School’s Visual and Performing Arts Magnet Program to implement an afterschool and summer program targeted to female students in grades 7-8.

The Lizzadro Museum of Lapidary Art (Elmhurst, Illinois) has received a $150,000 state grant to use for capital expenses related to the project to renovate and improve its Rock and Mineral Experience exhibit, which focuses on the earth sciences, lapidary arts and science.

The Citizens Bank Foundation announced a donation of $25,000 to the African American Museum in Philadelphia to underwrite the museum’s commemoration of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. on January 17. The foundation grant will provide free admission to the museum, as well as special events, including the Citizens Bank Scavenger Hunt for Heritage designed to help children learn about the museum and African American history.

affiliates in the news

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Congratulations to these Affiliates making headlines this week! 

Conner Prairie received the National Medal for Museum Service, a top honor for museums and libraries. (Photo Courtesy Conner Prairie)

Conner Prairie (Fishers, Indiana)
Top museum honor goes to Conner Prairie. READ MORE 

Miami Science Museum (Miami, Florida)
MiaSci receives girls’ education grant. READ MORE 

African American Museum in Philadelphia (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania)
Citizens Bank Foundation donates $25,000, sponsors free Community Day at the African American Museum. READ MORE 

National Museum of American Jewish History (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania)
A Museum Taken on Faith. READ MORE
Here’s how to navigate Philly’s newest addition. READ MORE

Montana Historical Society (Helena, Montana)
Montana Historical Society keeps accreditation. READ MORE

U.S. Space and Rocket Center (Huntsville, Alabama)
Bobby’s Bama: U.S. Space And Rocket Center. READ MORE