The Upper Peninsula Children's Museum
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Mission Statement
The Upper Peninsula Children's Museum, Inc. (UPCM) is an umbrella organization that includes an interactive museum (Museum) featuring displays and innovative programs within the subjects of Art, Health, Science, Communication, Global Issues, and the Environment and related youth empowerment programming. The UPCM provides a unique place for children and families to learn through participation. The UPCM: 1) Strengthens the cultural infrastructure of the Upper Peninsula and Northern Lower Peninsula of Michigan as well as Northern Wisconsin by providing an educational and cultural resource, 2) Utilizes education, art, and culture as a means to stimulate community and economic development, 3) Empowers youth to collaborate directly with artisans and planners to produce a Museum Center for, about and belonging to them. The Upper Peninsula Children’s Museum’s Mission: Engaging Youth and Families to discover through interactive exhibits and learning opportunities
About This Cause
The Upper Peninsula Children’s Museum’s Hands-On Museum The Upper Peninsula Children’s Museum (Museum) includes a regional, interactive hands-on museum featuring exceptional and unique displays and related innovative programs providing a unique place for children and families to learn through participation. Each exhibit is the product of participatory design workshops which saw children and families designing all of the Museum's exhibits. This is a very unique approach to museum development which has produced a delightful children's museum, for and by children. The Museum was designed to address the developmental stage of youth aged 1 - 13 yet it still delights visitors of all ages. Through creative youth empowerment, the Museum is able to offer cultural and educational exhibits that reflect the diverse interests, history, culture, and heritage. Special Museum programs are offered every weekday for small children and older children after school. The Museum is also the site of frequent special programs and performances. The Museum is proud to repurpose. Most of the Museum’s furniture, carpets, building supplies, toys are repurposed. We strongly support being as green as possible and are proud to give items a second life. The Museum has also converted to all LED energy efficient lights. The Museum Exhibits include a host of KID-DESIGNED activities to spur imagination, problem-solving, promote creativity and build relationships through play, a child’s first steps in learning: In the World of Science and Nature exhibit gallery where one will find: • a mesmerizing three-tiered Model Railroad winding around a U.P.-like mining environment; • a mountain under which kids can explore an archaeological dig with a huge sit-in mining truck called Wonder Ground; • Where’s Your Water, a crooked house, like the one Dorothy had which houses a huge slide-down flushing toilet tracing the route of wastewater ending up under a pond where guests will find a fun shadow wall; • visitors can crawl into and underneath an enormous tree, sit in a HUGE bird nest, or interact with turtles in the touch-tank, within the Fantastic Forest; • visit Recyclotorium where visitors can create sculptures using a variety of treasures and special "junk"; • The toddler area is a room filled with repurposed toys to delight the littlest visitors. It’s safe and confined where a little one can interact with many age appropriate toys to include being an actor inside a BIG TV; • AND of course, there is Creature Kingdom, which includes the touch tank castle home to fish and turtles, Critter Creek where one will be delighted by a host of touchable reptiles and the ever popular apple tree. In the Micro Society exhibit gallery, a kid-sized city-street for role-playing • visitors can become a chef in the Fossil Rock Candy Cafe; • dress up and become an actor in the Early Stages Theatre; • in the Mercantile they can become a postal worker, banker or grocery store worker; • a firefighter in Safetyville Station or hop into the ambulance to save the day; • pretend to be a car mechanic in The Cloverland Car Garage, pump the car with gas, put together a motor, work on the engine of a car or just drive one of the rideable cars down the street; • make music in Grace Land Sound Studio where guests will find interesting ways to make sounds, • or be a cosmetologist in Faces Salon, to name a few of the roleplaying areas. In the Over the Air exhibit gallery kids can be: • the pilot in the cockpit of a real jet while commands are given from the control tower; • a news or weathercaster on UPCM TV; • a radio DJ in the UPCM radio station (that projects to other parts of the Museum); • dig with a crane in a biomass pit; • In the summer watch our bees as they buzz inside our observatory beehive. The INCREDIBLE JOURNEY health exhibit covers a wide variety of health-related subjects in a larger than life body. • Climb into the grumbling Stomach then slide-down the Intestine where guests MUST push the “fluff” button at the end; • Climb-up a wart and grab on to a hair on the SKIN Climbing wall; • SOON, Explore the giant head, crawl into the huge heart and climb inside the enormous brain… • AND lots more to come!!!! The Upper Peninsula Children’s Museum’s Family of Interpretive Programming Programming addresses the following age categories; Babies / Toddlers (with caregivers) School-aged youth programming during classroom visits Programming for after school, weekends and holidays Special programs for all ages All UPCM programming supports: 1. Personal, emotional and social development 2. Communication and Language 3. Knowledge and understanding of the world 4. Expressive and aesthetic development 5. Physical development and movement In developing exhibits and our family of interpretive programs the UPCM has been very sensitive to the fact that people learn in different ways. Understanding that educational experts have defined seven intelligences in which people learn, the museum's interactive exhibits and related programming have been designed to teach using each intelligence. Many children get lost in the educational system or within a specific subject because they have not been taught the information within their particular intelligence. This is a very difficult task in the current educational process and demands a new structure in the classroom. The museum is a dynamic and powerful educational environment for our rural youth enhancing the traditional school curriculum with the ability to employ new learning styles. All of the UPCM’s interpretive programming strives to provide a meaningfully empowering experience educating with nontraditional hands-on individualized techniques. The UPCM recognizes the vital importance of make-believe and play to a child’s development. The Upper Peninsula Children’s Museum Educational Philosophy • The UPCM empowers youth by giving them a significant voice within its programs as well as providing a mechanism for spreading their voice to the community. • The UPCM believes in the importance of giving youth the respect for their ideas through each stage of their growth. • The UPCM youth programs are based on building personal and professional skills and positive assets through youth empowerment techniques. • The interactive museum and related programming are based on the philosophy that experiential hands-on learning is a critical component of REAL learning. • On April 27-29, 1997, General Colin Powell helped launch America’s Promise, an initiative to provide five fundamental resources to two million youth by the year 2000. The five fundamental resources; mentor, protect, nurture, teach and serve, provide the fundamental basis for programming conducted within the museum. • The UPCM utilizes the Search Institute's developmental asset research as a roadmap in programming and as an evaluation tool. The Upper Peninsula Children’s Museum’s Family of Interpretive Programming The UPCM’s mix of interpretive programming strives to give youth opportunities for learning otherwise not available in our region. The following programs are regularly evaluated and adapted to better address the needs of our visiting public. Jim Edwards the Museum’s Education Coordinator oversees and/or conducts all programming. Jim works with an army of volunteers in providing exemplary programs. Together Time programming encompasses all programs that have been established to give time for a parent and child to learn and be together, TOGETHER TIME. Babies / Toddlers (with caregivers), Together Time - Mr. Jim’s Toddler Club House --TOGETHER TIME Mr. Jim’s Toddler Club House consists of a variety of DROP-IN TOGETHER TIME programs designed for babies and toddlers with their caring adults for sharing and learning TOGETHER. All programs are meant to enlighten toddlers through developmentally appropriate fun, creativity and with a little social life mixed in at a variety of scheduled times during the week. TOGETHER TIME programming includes a host of volunteers sharing their talents with our guests as well as simple self-directed activities for learning and manipulating crafts materials. More TOGETHER TIME. FUN for the WHOLE Family - SECOND THURSDAY Creativity Series Together Time for the preschool and elementary aged child and an adult friend - 5:30 - 7:30 p.m. every second Thursday, a fun-filled evening of themed hands-on activity stations. 2016 monthly themes include: Princesses and Pirates, Art with a Heart, Family Science, Inventions, Harry Potter, Super Heroes, Rock Star Dance Party, Water Olympics, Books and PJ’s, Costume Party, Celebrating Disney and Polar Express. Current support comes from: Kohls Department store and their A-Team, Culvers who provides free custard, MI Council for Arts and Cultural Affairs, and the Max and Phyllis Reynolds Foundation. - Lizardry!! In this drop-in program offered most third Wednesdays of the month in the late afternoon join Veterinarian Dr. Shevy and her son Josh as they bring in a host of reptiles to compliment the museum’s permanent collection. Visitors are invited to hold the creatures and ask questions about the science of reptiles for casual hands-on learning. This is a very popular program adored by all ages. - Second and Fourth Fridays - SCHOOL OF ROCK School of Rock is a wonderfully empowering program consisting of young student musicians aged 10 - 16, accompanied by their instructor Bobby Hayes, who perform at the museum the second and fourth Friday of each month. The School of Rock gives casual performance within the children’s museum environment exposing children of all types and ages to live music while giving the young musicians a chance to perform to a real audience. School of Rock is held in the evenings during Museum hours.