ISM Program Plan | Exhibits & Alex

Program Plan

This was a final project for a Museum Education class that outlined a summer day camp curriculum focused on animal adaptation. Summer camps centered on animal content have formed the backbone of my early professional life, so it’s not surprising that I wanted to get assigned to this project. I have long loved many elements of the natural history galleries (Level 1 Core, closed 2017 for renovation) at the Indiana State Museum, so it was great to research that space in depth and spend a lot of time standing in the exhibit, trying to envision its use in my hypothetical programming.

I used discovery learning as my framework and proceeded to lean really hard on Bruner. There are probably places where it’s obvious that this is a first semester project, but I honestly like many of the choices I made, particularly grounding it in the local Pleistocene history and having students work on a multi-day, cumulative project.

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Flat-Headed Peccary Skull For this program plan, each day had a theme tied to a pair of pleistocene animals. Predator/prey relationships were part of the curriculum centered on flat-headed peccaries.
Naturalist's Lab Discovery learning is the learning framework for this plan. Observation, exploration, and new discoveries that build on prior knowledge reveal what contributes to an animal's survival.
Teeth Tell All Mammoths and mastodons provide a great contrast in tooth shapes-- grazers VS browsers. These kinds of tangible features that persist in animals today are a good example of how this plan sought to help students connect the local and ancient to the global and modern.
Activity Panels Guide Observation Gallery labels that suggest self-directed activities are some of the features that drove the structure of the program plan.
Dioramas Bring Bones to Life I wanted participants to think about animal bodies as puzzles to be solved. The dioramas in the gallery space make it easier to see connections to modern creatures and grasp how their physical characteristics do, and have always, shaped survival.

Program Plan

Flat-Headed Peccary Skull

For this program plan, each day had a theme tied to a pair of pleistocene animals. Predator/prey relationships were part of the curriculum centered on flat-headed peccaries.

Naturalist's Lab

Discovery learning is the learning framework for this plan. Observation, exploration, and new discoveries that build on prior knowledge reveal what contributes to an animal's survival.

Teeth Tell All

Mammoths and mastodons provide a great contrast in tooth shapes-- grazers VS browsers. These kinds of tangible features that persist in animals today are a good example of how this plan sought to help students connect the local and ancient to the global and modern.

Activity Panels Guide Observation

Gallery labels that suggest self-directed activities are some of the features that drove the structure of the program plan.

Dioramas Bring Bones to Life

I wanted participants to think about animal bodies as puzzles to be solved. The dioramas in the gallery space make it easier to see connections to modern creatures and grasp how their physical characteristics do, and have always, shaped survival.