In this ongoing project, four additional Minnesota Historical Society historic sites improved their service to 21st century learners and their teachers and parents. Fourteen sites revamped their field trip programs and developed online resources requested by teachers and parents in earlier research. The project team launched a standard evaluation tool across historic sites and museums to measure field trip outcomes for students and teachers, including the development of 21st century skills.
Dakota Wicohan is a regional non-profit language support organization that seeks to revitalize the Dakota language in Minnesota to a living language. In this grant, they will develop, digitize, and make available electronic and manual Dakota language learning resources to a minimum of 15 Dakota families and other learners broadly throughout the project year.
Partner: American Alliance of Museums
In fall 2013, 18 Minnesota teens partnered with 18 Palestinian teens in Jerusalem to study fashion, history and culture through a program called Design Diaries International. The girls researched textiles in the Minnesota Historical Society collections and the Palestinian Heritage Museum and worked with fashion designers to create garments, drawing on their research to express their unique identities. The girls shared what they learned through posts on Tumblr, a closed Facebook group, photo diaries, sketches and written reflections.
Partners: Minnesota Humanities Center for Indian Fellows; Comunidades Latinas Unidas En Servicio (CLUES) for Summer Technology Workshop
MNHS is working to serve Twin Cities area schools with increasingly diverse demographics. Staff members provide support services for students competing in National History Day in Minnesota and American Indian History Day. In addition, MNHS promotes and recruits diverse students for programs that engage participants in history. Two of these programs are the American Indian Museum Fellowship Program and the Summer History Immersion Program.
The Minnesota Historical Society strives to attract high school interns from underrepresented communities to encourage engagement and diversify the institution. High school students are placed as gallery assistants and get professional on-the-job-experience interacting with visitors in the History Center galleries and at public events.
The Minnesota Historical Society strives to attract high school interns from underrepresented communities to encourage engagement and to diversify the institution. Legacy funds supported five gallery assistants in spring 2015. High school students placed in this program get professional on-the-job experience interacting with visitors in the History Center galleries and at public events. These students contributed more than 400 hours to MNHS. Eighty percent of these students were from communities of color.
To contract with qualified professionals to prepare construction documents for the repair of the roof of the Gardner House, listed in the National Register of Historic Places and headquarters of the Germanic-American Institute.
Using video conferencing technology, the History Live program enables museum educators to deliver high-quality, engaging history lessons to classrooms anywhere in Minnesota. Any location with an Internet connection can participate. In FYs14 and 15, MNHS added two new lessons and introduced an innovative new technique of integrating classroom and student technology, including smart phones, iPods, tablets and laptops into videoconferencing lessons. This technology allows students to access and explore digitized primary resources and answer questions via polls during the live video lessons.
Minnesotans of all ages are participating in deep intergenerational learning experiences by working together to document and share community history. Major projects in FYs14 and 15 included a partnership with the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, in which the MNHS Teen Advisory Council supported Iraqi students in creating an exhibit about life in Baghdad. The teens met regularly via video-conference and had a private Facebook page. The exhibit created by the students was on display at the Minnesota History Center in December.
The Minnesota Main Street program is a proven, comprehensive strategy that helps communities create new jobs and businesses while revitalizing buildings and preserving their historic downtowns. MNHS's Heritage Preservation department works with the partners
listed above to implement Minnesota Main Street,
which provides the tools, training, information, and networking that communities need to revitalize their business districts.
There are currently seven Minnesota Main Street designated communities: Faribault, New Ulm, Owatonna, Red Wing, Shakopee, Willmar, and Winona.
Partner: The Amherst H. Wilder Foundation
The Minnesota Historical Society and the Wilder Foundation worked with two new groups of existing and emerging community leaders in FYs14 and 15 to enhance their ability to act on important community issues.
During each six-month program, 25 participants explored neighborhood involvement and developed leadership skills to take effective community action.
The Minnesota Historical Society and the Wilder Foundation worked with two new groups of existing and emerging community leaders in 2015 to enhance their ability to act on important community issues.
During each six-month program, 245 participants explored neighborhood involvement and developed leadership skills to take effective community action.
