CMSM opened its new permanent site with increased capacity to serve as an informal learning center that playfully engages children, families, and school groups in interactive experiences with the art and cultural heritage of southern Minnesota. With its current appropriation, CMSM is poised to strengthen its core as an institution that promotes arts and cultural heritage learning through continued
The Equity Alliance MN will bring to life absent narratives of Latino, Hmong, Native, Asian, African American, and women of the Civil Rights Era in a collaboration among youth, social studies teachers, Full Circle Theater (FCT), and St. Paul Neighborhood Network. The narratives, researched by youth, will be transformed by FCT into a six person play that will be presented, video recorded, and distributed with accompanying curriculum written by social studies teachers for teachers across the Equity Alliance MN and the state.
The Children's Discovery Museum in Grand Rapids, Minnesota aims to strengthen its highly successful School Service Program by retaining a Program development coordinator, changing core interactive exhibits and creating new curriculum for pre-school and K - 5 students in ten northern Minnesota counties.
In 2007, the Children's Museum of Southern Minnesota (CMSM) conducted an environmental scan of early learning opportunities for children in southern Minnesota. It became apparent that the region creates few opportunities for children to engage in self-directed learning experiences in social settings; in particular, opportunities that create access to arts, culture, and heritage. This is still true today.
Building on the exhibit development community engagement process carried out through four successive Legacy grants, the Children’s Museum of Southern Minnesota will use the 2014-15 direct appropriation to complete fabrication and installation of several exhibit components for its permanent facility. Local resources, volunteers, and community involvement will be combined with museum expertise to complete this process.
This project had three components: 1) An arts club that meets weekly and provides arts education and peer mentoring; 2) A theater play that will showcase issues/challenges within the Somali community in the community. The workshops are designed to introduce youth to traditional Somali arts and encourage them to extend the tradition through their own artistic practice. 3) Showcasing Somali Art, presentation and intercultural community engagement at the Somali Independence day Festival in 2016.
Minnesota, home to the largest Somali population in the United States, lacks resources for students to access knowledge and representations of Somalia. The Somali Museum of Minnesota will offer students immersive field trips illuminating the history and arts of traditional Somali society by subsidizing admission fees, integrating elders as immersive guides on tours, and developing take-home curriculum materials.
Arts and Cultural Heritage funding will allow us to pursue three major initiatives between July 1, 2015 and June 30, 2016: 1) Offer special exhibits and programs promoting creative and critical thinking in our main museum in St. Paul; 2) A Pop-up satellite Museum at the Mall of America featuring four changing exhibits to attract thousands of new visitors; and 3) Changing exhibits and access at Minnesota Children’s Museum-Rochester to ensure inclusive family experiences for the Rochester community. Recipient:
This Legacy grant will focus on the too-often neglected local school districts that have generally not participated in the CDM SSP at the same level as distant schools in surrounding counties. A new CDM interactive exhibit is badly needed to draw back visitors who have been looking for something new at the Museum for children.
The Children's Discovery Museum in Grand Rapids, Minnesota will increase access and deepen engagement with their effectively proven School Service Program. The museum will take down the economic barriers and increase enrollment. This grant will fund more educators and facilitators, curriculum development, scholarship aid, transportation assistance and art/teaching supplies.
With roughly 70,000 residents, Minnesota is home to the largest Hmong population in the United States. The top spinning game of Tuj Lub (pronounced - too loo) has its roots in Southeast Asia and holds cultural significance to the Hmong community. Formal Tuj Lub courts, constructed near a multi-shelter picnic area at Keller Regional Park, seek
In 2016, VocalEssence WITNESS welcomes artist Melanie DeMore to help us explore the Underground Railroad in Minnesota—specifically how our state has been a place of sanctuary for refugees from the time of slavery through today. As part of this project, Melanie will help record absent narratives of those who have found sanctuary in Minnesota, and these stories will be shared in video and written form to explore the concept of sanctuary as part of the WITNESS School Program.
