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Hi, I'm Jane Kloecker. I'm the director of the Science and Nature
Program for young children here at the museum. And we do many of the
things that Amy described so well, but we do it with 3 to 8 or 9-year-olds
and actually, since our program is a family-based program, I should
say, babies through 80 years old, because often we never know who's
going to come. The families who are part of our program often bring
their neighbors and their friends and grandparents and aunts. So we're
never quite sure. Our main thing, really, is to take complex scientific
concepts and present them to young children and to families who are
often not familiar with science or with nature, with urban families
or families who are new immigrants to the city or to this country.
Often they don't have the language skills that many of the families
that attend museums do. So I think our first job, really, is to make
people comfortable, to make them want to learn what we have to offer.
People really just don't care about things they don't know about or
don't like, and our job is to really have them care. This generation
is an important generation for the theme of biodiversity. If we don't
teach this generation to care, we have a problem, as I'm sure you
know after hearing the scientific panelists and the discussions we've
had so far.
A very important thing to mention, I think, is the point the media
panelists brought out yesterday: that when they present nature programs,
they have to combine education with entertainment. There's this very
fine balance between the two, and we have to maintain that balance.
But learning has to be enjoyable, particularly something like science,
which people are afraid of. It's very important to make it fun and
enjoyable. Our program is really about teaching children how to see,
how to observe, and the adults who are part of their lives are all
included because these are very young children. If the learning is
not extended into the school and the home, it's not successful. In
our partnerships with neighborhood community centers and Headstart,
day care, and public schools, I have to really involve the principals,
the educational directors, and every adult who's in charge of the
program, because if the teachers don't have their support, the things
we give them, the ideas and the materials, are just not successful.
So a principal must come with the classes to participate. Our program
is about looking, observing closely, exploring and discovering, asking
questions, developing self confidence and pride, and being brave and
conquering your fear, but it's also about joy—to really enjoy
what you're doing and take great pleasure in what you've learned.
This is one of the groups of 4-year-olds that come to us once a week
with their teachers, an educational director, a psychologist, a cook
and our staff here at the museum. I have a wonderful staff who make
this program successful. We use the museum collection. We bring it
out from behind the glass, and sometimes we're a little more successful
than we planned for. I found Ali kissing the skunk right after I took
this picture. But we really develop their interest in the animal kingdom.
Some of the children don't have the vocabulary. They don't know the
words. We use the real scientific term and present it in a way that
we hope they will remember. This is just a game where we use museum
collections, photographs, different parts of games in the room, and
they sort it. Of course, at the museum, we're very lucky to have these
wonderful exhibits. And this is the Dzanga Sangha rain forest—a
little out of focus—in the Hall of Biodiversity, which I believe
you visited. Another point raised by the media specialists is that
you have to have a good story. When we go to an exhibit like this,
we really prepare and we have a great adventure. We have safari vests,
flashlights, binoculars, each child has a chain. Barbie's just wearing
the outfit. Actually, I don't particularly like Barbie, but she serves
a real purpose; we kept her there because we found that the children
who really couldn't communicate very well or who had some problems
spent a lot of time talking to Barbie. So we left her there. But each
child has an ID chain, like we have at the museum, but this chain
also is a way to hang photographs of what the children are looking
for. So when we go out on our excursions into the museum halls, they
have a photograph or several photographs of what they're looking to
find, and this really focuses them in the halls. We don't have any
behavior problems. But there is this real sense of adventure going
off into the rain forest. And the children see amazing things. The
flashlights really help. They have this feeling that they're really
in a rain forest.
Some of the groups that come to us have a high absence rate in the
public schools. The principals, teachers, and support staff that come
with them are just amazed at the way they're engaged here at the museum.
We talk about all the parts of the rain forest and what animals live
in those particular parts. We have all types of materials and games
that we have invented You have to be very inventive.
This is one piece of a huge rain forest that the children made out
of big styrofoam blocks and paper-towel holders and tubes and construction
paper. And it really gives you a wonderful feeling of the rain forest.
It has a lot of depth to it, a lot of detail. And when you push about
20 of these together, it looks like a rain forest does from the air.
In the Hall of Biodiversity we show them the spectrum of life, all
the parts of the animal kingdom and the plant kingdom. We go through
the birds and mammals and reptiles and amphibians; we use a lot of
arthropods. We find arthropods are really the ambassadors for biodiversity.
They are the ambassadors for the animal kingdom. We have a lot of
replicas, so if the children are uncomfortable, they get to play with
the different replicas and then they enjoy it and become more comfortable.
We never force anybody to do anything they don't want to do. Their
drawings become very morphologically correct, showing the head, thorax
and abdomen, the six legs. This is on their own as they learn. Then
we introduce a lot of live arthropods. And we teach them to care for
them and to respect them, that they're an important part of the environment,
and we explain the role that insects play in our lives. What they're
initially fearful of, really becomes their friend. Tonya has a handful
of snails as well as the slugs all over her. Of course, this really
grosses out their parents. But it's the adults we really have to educate.
We use books, too, an awful lot. We show children how to do research.
But the parents and the teachers are an important part of the education.
And they become comfortable, too, by the end of the year.
This is in preparation for one of the entomologist's visits. We invite
scientists from the museum to come and join us, and to show us their
research. This is Lou Sorkin from entomology. All of these of different
arthropods are also in the Dzanga Sangha rain forest. If you have
a flashlight, you can find them down on the ground if you crawl around
down there, which we do a lot!
This is a very old museum diorama. It's one inch of forest floor,
which you might have seen. And this is to show them what's under the
soil. We have these live arthropods in the museum for the children
to handle. We do a lot of art also. But it's really the care and the
respect for the living thing that we want to transmit to the children
and the parents. The children really enjoy showing their parents and
teachers how to handle things properly. And you know you've really
succeeded when giant tropical millipedes are the first item on someone's
Christmas list.
The children then research their favorite arthropod. This was in our
study of biodiversity. And you can see that Devon has gotten each
leg; by the end, he had counted the exact number of legs that the
giant tropical millipedes had. We're also fortunate at the museum
to have this wonderful tropical butterfly exhibit for winter, because
it's very hard to go outside then. We do a lot of studies of butterflies.
The groups that are not necessarily partners with us—the partners
come once a week with their teachers and parents and the whole support
staff and educational staff—but the other groups that we collaborate
with come several times a year, and they give the teachers a lot of
training beforehand. We cover raising moths and butterflies so that
the children experience metamorphosis. They also get to see that in
the butterfly exhibit. These boys are preparing to enter the exhibit.
We do a lot with finger puppets and what to do if a butterfly lands
on you so that the children are prepared before they go.
This is a group of children who have high absence rates in the public
schools. The children have wonderful visits with us. Several have
returned again with new groups this year. Gina's taught all the children
how to handle butterflies and not be afraid. And it's just really
a lot of fun. If children are frightened, they can step outside and
watch through the glass, or they can just look. They don't have to
touch.
Timothy has the photograph of the owl butterfly around his neck, and
he's found a real owl butterfly that he's watching feed. Rynick was
in one of the first groups that came last year. This program's only
about a year and a half old. This is our second year. And he was very
frightened. Do you see how he's conquered his fear by having the butterfly
sit in his sleeve and he has his hands all tucked in? But this year,
he was the leader of the group. It's wonderful that you can watch
the owls feed very carefully.
Parents also have worksheets. This is a group of parents that came
before their children so that they could go back and teach their children
and then bring their children here. Fran‡ois is watching the owl feed.
This shows the multiple layers or levels within which we operate.
In the foreground is the group of parents in the tuition program—this
is our Young Explorers Club for 4-year-olds—with their children.
Observing them is a group of parents from Chinatown who have 4-year-olds
that they're going to bring to the museum; and many do not speak English.
And then we had a scientist from the natural history museum in Tokyo
observing us.
This is a program we're very proud of. Marta goes out to the Riverside
Community Center to teach the parents the science their children are
learning. So once a week the parents also get a science lesson. We
involve the parents as much as possible. Mothers are making flowers
for their butterfly children who are going to sip nectar. Jonathan
has a cup of apple juice in there that he's enjoying. Sometimes you
have to go to great lengths to get the point across.
These are 4- and 5-year-olds dissecting a female blue morpho butterfly.
The mothers' club is learning to pin butterflies in preparation for
teaching their children. So then the next week they came to the museum.
This is Brenda's grandmother helping her.
We often take ideas from the children. They've built this big bonfire.
This is what we have as blocks, as a part of trees. And they started
to burn all the spiders and scorpions and all the things they thought
were the bad bugs. So we carried this through for a couple of weeks,
talking about what is beneficial, which are harmful, how the different
life cycle stages are interesting because maybe a caterpillar is harmful
to the farmer, but then we get a beautiful butterfly or moth. Peter
was two years nine months when he did this.
And toward the end of the year, we talk more about the concepts extinct
and endangered, and give them some ideas for what they can do. Children
are quite upset by the idea of extinct and endangered. They feel helpless,
so it's important to give them ideas. And toward the end of the year,
too, when the weather's better, we take safaris out into the park
so they can learn about their environment. This is the playground
that they all go to. They're looking at the parkland in a different
way and are exploring the leaf litter and doing the things Amy described.
They make a final project—a habitat. The habitats have to include
everything-the food, water, air. This is a white cabbage butterfly.
Chanda was quite fond of the caterpillar. And toward the end of our
partnerships, we had a big fiesta and the children dressed up as their
favorite insects. We had a wonderful graduation, which we always do.
But it's really about the love of nature. And our classroom is right
here, in the Blum lecture room across from the theater. So if you
want to visit, we have lots of material, and we would be glad to answer
any questions.
Thank you.
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