Marisia - Maros Megyei Múzeum Évkönyve 31/2. (2011)

Museum Pedagogy

The educational project My hero from nature

population lives in Romania), March was the month of the Wolf (about 40% of the European wolf population occurs here) and April the month of the Owl (superstition “victim” and subject of myths and legends).

After setting the general themes for each month an analysis of what should include a practical activity was necessary, following the general steps [3]:

a) . The preparation, type and structure of each activity;

b) . The content of each activity;

c) . The methods of education applied;

d) . The role and attitude of the museum staff;

e) . Self evaluation of the coordinator and general evaluation of each activity;

f) . General observations regarding the activities (the level of understanding of the participants, the attitude of the teachers towards the project).

During the preparation stage materials regarding the three animals were gathered from the museum library, internet sources and our museum written hand guides [1, 2], making it thus easy for the participants to procure the material for their one library and future studies. Experience from other educational projects showed that children respond better to visual (powerpoint presentations, short scientific documentaries) and practical methods of communications that is why each activity included methods and techniques designed for these learning methods. For each month an activity followed three steps:- In the first step the participants should become familiar with the animal in subject,- The second step implies the structuring of the information acquired during the first step by practical written exercises or interactive worksheets and by a visit in the museum general exhibit where they can observe the real animal;- The final step or the use of the new information acquired, when each participant should be able to specify why the animal and its habitat should be protected, its role in nature and what are the causes of the decline in number of the specimen and how can he or she prevent them.

The project coordinators divided equally the documentation responsibilities and for each month a package containing: a power-point presentation, interactive worksheets and scientific documentaries were elaborated and procured. The project was developed for a wide range of students, of every age, starting from the first grade and finishing with high school students. To meet the requirements for each category of age and the school curriculum the coordinators divided the tasks and for each month were prepared materials specific to the participant’s level of preparation. Пае power — point presentations had the same structure from one month to the other so that the children could visualize and memorise better the information.

The duration of one activity was set at two hours with the possibility to reduce the quantity of material at the request of the teachers. The fee for each participant was set at 2 Ron, the general entrance fee for children at our museum.

After establishing the general guidelines for each month at the end of January the project was advertised using the Brukenthal Museum web page (http://www.brukenthalmuseum.ro/educatie/

index.html) where for each month of the project Dana Roxana Hrib elaborated interactive and exciting power — point presentations, the main source for information dissemination was the Natural History Museum blog administrated by Gabriela Cuzepan (http://naturalmuseum.wordpress.com/

educatie/) which proved to be also the most effective method combined with mailing and oral presentations of the upcoming project to the teachers that already attended our museum’s educational activities. The museum edited a poster (Fig. 1) that stood outside, for everyone to see, for the entire project, thus reaching the general public, mostly the parents, who in many occasions are the ones who encourage their children teachers to attend extracurricular activities.

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