Die Strategie für das Lebenslange Lernen ... - EUROlocal

146
NEW LEARNING WORLDS
Learning Network Schleswig/Sønderjylland (Schleswig-Holstein)
German-Danish Children’s Museum in Flensburg
I. Problem
III. Outlook
Children rarely find it attractive to visit a place of cultural
learning, for example a museum. Although museums focus
on interesting topics for children, these are hardly ever put
across in a way that corresponds to children’s learning
behaviour. This means that an important resource for positive,
motivational learning experiences remains unused.
By December 2004 the Association of the Friends of the
Flensburg Children’s Museum will have been set up. This
will serve to integrate new network partners on a permanent
basis and to secure the project’s finances.
www.die-lernende-region.de
II. Solution approach
Children’s museums are not museums in the usual sense of
the word, but autonomous, innovative cultural sites. They
allow for “learning spaces” and thus learning situations,
which are geared to children’s curiosity, their pleasure in
discovery and creativity. At the same time, children are stimulated
to learn with all their senses and encouraged to ask
their own questions. The focus id on self-determined, free
and un-self-conscious contact with materials, and above all
the – for museums unusual – “hands on” principle, in other
words touching, trying out and experimenting with the
exhibits.
The German-Danish Children’s Museum in Flensburg is
the first-ever bilingual children’s museum and the only one
to be organized on cross-border lines.
The Flensburg Children’s Museum is aimed at German
and Danish children in the age-group between four and
eleven, together with their families. Alongside individual
visitors, we also address parties such as school classes and
groups from nursery schools and other institutions north
and south of the border between Germany and Denmark.
The permanent components of the museum are:
• workshops for children of various ages;
• exhibitions organized by children for children;
• interactive exhibitions in the museum;
• cultural events in the museum and its grounds.