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The Children’s Museum has established a variety of programs to support our city, our neighborhoods, and the families that fill them. The Extraordinary Transformations campaign seeks to maintain and grow these programs. Your donation makes an impact on visitors tiny and tall. You create experiences and memories for ALL. In the My Museum blog series, we’re showing you just that.
The Museum Apprentice Program (MAP) is a project-based program that focuses on museum education, civic engagement, and leadership development. MAP participants, ages 13 to 18, meet twice a month throughout the year to work on group and individual projects related to the museum’s community-based partnerships and neighborhood development initiatives. Teens are also encouraged to participate in volunteer opportunities that help bolster their resumes or college applications.
MAP students work on projects in the Paleo Lab, Archaeology Lab, and STEMLab. Their projects are often related to current and classic exhibits—tying in study with real experience. Participants also go on college visits, and are taught life-skill lessons in preparing for their futures. Director of MAP, Melissa Trumpey says, “We want them to become leaders, to become college ready...for whatever they experience beyond high school.”
To become a MAP participant, teens must be invested in their personal growth and willing to challenge themselves. The program is competitive, with a time-sensitive application process. Once an applicant is an approved MAP and they continue to meet the program requirements, participant, they are always one, from that point until they graduate!
Within the Museum Apprentice Program, teens can discover career avenues and opportunities beyond what they might expect. They equip themselves with the communication skills and tools needed to pursue the future they want. Many of our MAPs participants pursue higher education, and feel confident in doing so. If not college, MAPs prepares students with interpersonal experience to take on job interviews with a breadth of experience for their resume.
Being a foundation and witness to the extraordinary transformations of student individuals is what keeps the museum motivated to maintain and grow these programs. After all, impact starts small.
Learn more or donate to the Extraordinary Transformations campaign.
