Grey-Bruce Kids Spring 2021

EDUCATION
Hands-on history
in digital times
BY MIKE SCHWINDT
consider myself very lucky to be living in the era in which we
I live.
As an Education/Outreach Coordinator at the Bruce County
Museum & Cultural Centre, I work every day surrounded by
artifacts of days past. I will never complain about the effort
involved in laundry again since seeing what passed as state-ofthe-art
in the early-1900s!
Even better, at our Museum, I can physically touch things.
Unlike many points in human history, we live in an era where
children can be children and learn by picking things up,
manipulating them, and trying to figure out what they can do
with them.
Some of my earliest memories come from the cusp of this time,
with my Great Aunt Ruth taking me to the London Children’s
Museum. Aunt Ruth, coming from an earlier generation, was
decidedly uncomfortable with the idea of touching museum
exhibits or items. I, as a child who wanted to behave, had to
be convinced by a staff member to do so! My two most vivid
memories are of touching a plasma ball so that all my hair stood
on end, and digging – like a real paleontologist – for dinosaur
bones. Imagine my joy, when I started at the Museum, to
discover that I could dig for fossils at work!
Unfortunately, thanks to COVID-19, we’ve come full circle. The
teachers I know and work with have gone from classrooms full
of objects to use and learn from in a hands-on way, with groups
of students sharing and interacting in an engaging environment,
to sterile, separate desks with very few hands-on materials,
knowing that after each use, they will need to sit untouched for
days or be sanitized to be safe.
To bring some joy back to the classroom, the Museum has
launched a Digital Education Centre where educators and
parents can experience our programming resources. Classes can
virtually participate in our Day in the Life of a Pioneer Child
program, take part in Ancient Civilizations activities, learn about
the Last Frontier, and so much more.
As we all started online learning this past January, I was working
from home on new resources and digital programs for the
Museum to share with schools and the community. At the
same time, all kinds of interesting things were happening in the
background – my youngest child was doing yoga in the middle
of the living room floor so she could see the computer screen,
while my oldest was cutting slices of carrots for her counters and
running into issues with them disappearing or putting dog treats
on top of the tablet so she could “share” her dog.
Despite (and sometimes because of) this, I was able to write and
create and develop. As much of a challenge as it was balancing
support for my kids’ learning and work, it happened, and with
some really interesting results.
Working on an activity to deliver an educational program based
on our new digital exhibit, Earth’s Climate in the Balance, I was
14 GREY-BRUCE KIDS • SPRING 2021 greybrucekids.com • 15