Tag Archive for: College Park Aviation Museum

Capturing the Cosmos in College Park

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Special thanks to our guest blogger, Chelsea Dorman, College Park Aviation Museum, College Park, MD for this post

Last fall, College Park Aviation Museum had the opportunity to lead two Capture the Colorful Cosmos classes using assistance from a Smithsonian Youth Access Fund grant. Our museum attracts many younger children for all of its hands-on activities, but we have been looking for ways to expand our reach to older students. I was excited to be able to use a program about astrophotography to target a new audience of middle school age students. With events like the transit of Venus and solar flares frequently making the news, learning to operate robotic telescopes to take pictures of the heavens has an easy draw. College Park sits just outside of Washington, D.C. in Prince George’s County, MD and boasts a very diverse population. The Maryland-National Capital Parks and Planning Commission runs much of the recreation in the county including 41 community centers and our museum. This made it a natural fit for us to offer the Capture the Colorful Cosmos program to our immediate community.

We decided to hold our Capture the Colorful Cosmos programs at nearby community centers since the museum does not have a computer lab. Both Beltsville Community Center and Langley Park Community Center offered us space for an after school program that would be held once a week, for six weeks in their computer labs. Our class size was limited to 10 students by the seats available in the room, but we found that these students kept us busy throughout each class, and it would have been difficult to accommodate additional participants.

In our first session, students learned the basics of the MicroObservatory software, how to request images, and discussed how astronomy influences their everyday life. Throughout the course we tried to keep a balance of learning to manipulate images, learning about the universe, and a creative activity. At the end of each session students went home with a copy of the image they had created that day printed on our photo printer. By the end of the course, students were able to create and refine composite images and false color images, creating all sorts of artistic, brightly colored galaxies and moons. The Kids Capture the Universe curriculum provided by the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics was a terrific resource for finding activities and planning our program. One of our students’ favorite activities was creating astropoetry and many of them decided to include their poem in our final exhibit.

All of the students’ hard work culminated in an exhibit that was displayed at College Park Aviation Museum for three months. Each student picked two images they had created to display. During our final two classes, everyone poured through books and websites to learn about the celestial objects in their images so they could write a caption describing their work. The exhibit was debuted with an evening reception, which coincided with the opening of our Aviation Meets Art exhibit featuring local artists. It was a fantastic event, and everyone was thrilled and impressed by what the kids had created. In fact, many of the adults in attendance wanted to know when they would have their chance to create astrophotography images of their own.

The Capture the Colorful Cosmos program has been a great way for us to continue to grow our outreach. Through this program we were able to reach a nearby home-school group who had never been to our museum. The kids had a lot of enthusiasm for what they were learning, and would frequently share other astrophotography pictures and facts they had found at home. The program was a great success, and we plan on using what we have learned to host another workshop, this time at College Park Aviation Museum. In May, we will utilize the set of netbooks made available by the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics to host a family workshop. We hope this will allow the younger children and adults who are interested to learn about astrophotography too. Capture the Colorful Cosmos was easy to learn and implement, so we hope to continue offering it as a recurring event.

kudos affiliates! funding news for October 2012

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As summer turns into autumn, Affiliate accomplishments continue to shine!

The Massachusetts Cultural Council approved a proposal to create and name one of the state’s newest cultural districts, the Canalway Cultural District.  The District encompasses two Affiliates – the Boott Cotton Mills Museum (operated by the Lowell National Historical Park) and the American Textile History Museum (Lowell, Massachusetts).

Conner Prairie (Fishers, Indiana) is the recipient of a $2.3 million grant from the National Science Foundation. This grant will help efforts to integrate science into exhibits and programming over the coming years and create new science-based interactive fun for guests.

PetSmart Inc. is contributing $50,000 to sponsor a cultural diversity series “Unity Through Diversity” at the Musical Instrument Museum (Phoenix, Arizona). The series will focus on various musical traditions that unite people.

The Birmingham Civil Rights District has been named Attraction of the Year by the Alabama Tourism Department. The district, which includes The Birmingham Civil Rights Institute, Kelly Ingram Park and the 16th Street Baptist Church, was awarded at the Alabama Governor’s Conference on Tourism.

Science Museum Oklahoma (Oklahoma City, Oklahoma) announced the award of a $3 million grant from the Donald W. Reynolds Foundation. The grant will be used to fund the extension of the Oklahoma Museum Network (OMN) program, a consortium of museums strategically located across the state working together to provide high quality, hands-on educational experiences. 

Richmond County Savings Foundation presented Snug Harbor Cultural Center and Botanical Gardens (Staten Island, New York) with a $30,000 award to support the new Heritage Farm project, which combines urban farming with education as well as support for Island feeding programs.

Long Island Museum (Stony Brook, New York) announced that its Long Island Long Ago school program was awarded a grant from Target Corporation. The grant will help the museum reach more than 12,000 Long Island school children annually, including those from underserved communities. In addition, The Long Island Museum was selected to receive a grant from the Greater Hudson Heritage Network for the conservation of several carriages and sleighs that will be featured in two new exhibition galleries in the Carriage Museum. 

History Colorado (Denver, Colorado) was selected to receive Mountain Plains Museum Association’s Leadership and Innovation Award.

College Park Aviation Museum (College Park, Maryland) received an Anacostia Trails Heritage Area Inc. grant for $500 to support the “Aviation Meets Art” program.

10 Affiliates received Museums for America Program Grants from The Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS).

  1. Chabot Space and Science Center Foundation (Oakland, California) Award Amount: $149,885Chabot Space & Science Center will use its grant to support and expand its Galaxy Explorers/Champions of Science program, a teen education program to enhance their STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) knowledge and proficiency through hands-on, standards-based science enrichment and experimentation; to provide students with meaningful and challenging volunteer and work experience; to allow them to build crucial interpersonal and professional development skills; and to give them an opportunity to give back to their communities through science outreach.
  2.  San Diego Air & Space Museum (San Diego, California) Award Amount: $124,500The San Diego Air & Space Museum, with its partner the Balboa Park Online Collaborative, will increase public access to its photo and video collections online through the two-year Great Explorations project.
  3. History Colorado (Denver, Colorado) Award Amount: $144,895History Colorado will inventory approximately 4,500 items stored at the Museum Support Center in Pueblo, Colorado, in order to gain physical and intellectual control of the collection, improve collections access, and make collections resources and associated information broadly available for research and use.
  4. Mashantucket Pequot Museum and Research Center (Mashantucket, Connecticut)  Award Amount: $32,430Mashantucket Pequot Museum and Research Center, a tribally owned and operated institution in southeastern Connecticut, will use its grant to develop new programmatic explorations aided by handheld technologies. Each program will consist of a multimedia, in-depth exploration of an aspect of Pequot Indian history, accessed through the use of touch-screen technologies and enriched by images, oral histories, and objects.
  5. Miami Science Museum (Miami, Florida)  Award Amount: $149,955The Miami Science Museum will develop an exhibit addressing the intellectual needs of adults who accompany young children (aged three to six) to science exhibitions. The goal is to provide access to science for young learners while simultaneously providing rich learning opportunities for adults, thereby optimizing outcomes for multigenerational audiences.
  6. HistoryMiami (Miami, Florida)  Award Amount: $140,700HistoryMiami will present the Cultural Heritage Spotlight Series, an annual artist-in-residence project highlighting Miami area traditional artists and cultures.
  7. National World War II Museum, Inc. (New Orleans, Louisiana)  Award Amount: $150,000The National World War II Museum will use the grant to support The Campaigns Pavilion Road to Berlin, composed of two exhibitions, The Road to Tokyo: Asia-Pacific Campaign Gallery and The Road to Berlin: European-Mediterranean Campaign Gallery. The objectives of this project are to implement an interactive technology to allow visitors to digitally collect content, to provide a digital device for visitors to follow the stories of WWII historical figures; to create a mechanism to collect data of user interactions, and to develop a tool to collect visitor information to facilitate post-visit communications.
  8. American Textile History Museum (Lowell, Massachusetts)  Award Amount: $94,806The American Textile History Museum will accession, catalogue, and scan 2,600 photographs of textile workers, textile mills and machinery, and views of textile cities and towns from the 19th and 20th centuries, as well as 1,950 insurance maps of textile mills dating from 1872 to 1953. This project constitutes the final phase of a four-phase effort to improve intellectual control of and online access to the museum’s library and curatorial collections through the Chace Catalogue.
  9. North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences (Raleigh, North Carolina)  Award Amount: $129,697The North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences will develop experiential programming and purchase educational supplies and equipment for its Earth Observation and Biodiversity (EOB) Investigate Lab. The EOB Investigate Lab will engage adults and teens, in authentic science research to prepare them for college, the workforce, and science and civic literacy.
  10. Museum of Nature and Science (Dallas, Texas)  Award Amount: $131,289The Museum of Nature and Science will create an expanded and highly productive volunteer program to complement its move to a newly built state-of-the-art facility in downtown Dallas. The museum will develop a comprehensive updated volunteer program focused on recruitment, job placement, training, and evaluation in order to provide superior customer experiences and efficient operations, while building strong attendance and membership.

One affiliate received a Museum Grants for African American History and Culture from The Institute of Museum and Library Services:

National Underground Railroad Freedom Center (Cincinnati, Ohio)  Award Amount: $29,841
The National Underground Railroad Freedom Center will develop an institutional succession plan to provide professional development opportunities to mid-level managers and to mentor and train identified managers and directors to enhance their leadership and managerial skills.

 

 

coming up in affiliateland in october 2011

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Autumn is always a busy time in Affiliateland!  Hope you can catch one of these opportunities to experience the Smithsonian in your hometown.

KENTUCKY:
The Ten Thousand Springs Pavilion architectural model, on loan from the Smithsonian’s Museum Conservation Institute, is on view at the Headley-Whitney Museum in Lexington, through 3/2012.

WASHINGTON:
Apollo 15 astronaut Al Worden will be speaking about his book Falling to Earth at the Museum of Flight in Seattle, 10/8.

CONNECTICUT:
The Mashantucket Pequot Museum will open the IndiVisible exhibition, on loan from the National Museum of the American Indian, in Mashantucket, 10/8.

NEW YORK:
Smithsonian National Board member Abby Joseph Cohen will speak at the Museum of American Finance in New York, 10/13.

LOUISIANA:
The Ogden Museum of Southern Art will be celebrating their 10th anniversary as an affiliate in New Orleans, 10/15.

ARIZONA:
The Arizona State  Museum will open the Through the Eyes of the Eagle, an exhibition developed by Affiliate the David J. Sencer CDC Museum) in Tucson, 10/15.

KANSAS:
Apollo 15 astronaut Al Worden will be speaking about his book Falling to Earth at the Kansas Cosmophere in Hutchinson, 10/15.

MARYLAND:
Curator Michael Neufeld will lecture on the National Air and Space Museum Autobiography at the College Park Aviation Museum in College Park, 10/15.

MASSACHUSETTS:
The USS Constitution Museum will be announcing their affiliation at a Launching Party in Boston, 10/20.

GEORGIA:
Dr. David W. Penney, Associate Director for Museum Scholarship at the National Museum of the American Indian, will present a talk on historic Native American objects at the Southeastern Cowboy Festival at the Booth Western Art Museum in Cartersville, 10/21.

NORTH CAROLINA:
The Charlotte Museum of History will open SITES’ Native Words, Native Warriors exhibition in Charlotte, 10/22.

SOUTH CAROLINA:
Affiliations staff will be on a panel with colleagues from the Headley-Whitney Museum, the Museum of Arts and Sciences, Tellus Science Museum, and York County Culture and Heritage Museums at the Southeastern Museum  Conference in Greenville, 10/25-27.

 

 

happy 10th anniversary College Park Aviation Museum!

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Congratulations to the College Park Aviation Museum on their 10th anniversary as a Smithsonian Affiliate!

Berliner helicopter on view at the College Park Aviation Museum in Maryland

Since their joining the Affiliations Program in March 2001, the Museum has been active in bringing important artifacts, speakers, and exhibitions from the National Museum of Air and Space to College Park, Maryland.  The Museum sits on the grounds of the world’s oldest continuously operating airport, which was founded in 1909 when Wilbur Wright established a flight instruction operation for the first military aviators.  Not surprisingly, the Museum displays Wright memorabilia on loan from the Smithsonian, including their pocket watch and a Medal of Congress.  The Museum also displays the impressive and historic Berliner helicopter, the product of an inventive father-and-son team to become the first Americans to make any significant progress towards the creation of a practical helicopter.

Over the years, the Museum has hosted Smithsonian exhibitions including SITES’ At the Controls, and NASM’s In Plane View and Fly Now!NASM’s Flight Posters.  They have  hosted Smithsonian speakers on a range of topics from women and African Americans in aviation to milestones in early aviation history.

Consider a trip to the Museum next time you’re in the D.C. area.  At just 8 miles away from downtown, visitors can experience this landmark of early aviation history, while seeing some Smithsonian treasures along the way.  Kudos to the College Park Aviation Museum for 10 years of collaboration, and here’s to many more years of our flying together!