Minnesota Children’s Museum Arts and Access Programs
Arts and Cultural Heritage funding will allow us to pursue three major initiatives between July 1, 2017 and June 30, 2018: Develop a model for creating and delivering more dynamic experiences in the new Twin Cities museum; Empower parents by sharing information on their children’s learning using mobile technology; Changing exhibits and experiences at Minnesota Children’s Museum-Rochester to ensure hands-on learning experiences for the Rochester community.
Arts and Cultural Heritage funding will allow us to pursue three major initiatives between July 1, 2018 and June 30, 2019: Develop a model for creating and delivering dynamic experiences in the new Twin Cities museum; Empower parents by sharing information on their children’s learning using digital technology; Changing exhibits and experiences at Minnesota Children’s Museum-Rochester to ensure hands-on learning experiences for the Rochester community.
$1,030,000 the first year and $950,000 the second year are for arts and cultural heritage grants to children's museums for arts and cultural exhibits and related educational outreach programs.Of this amount, $500,000 each year is for the Minnesota Children's Museum for interactive exhibits and outreach programs on arts and cultural heritage, including the Minnesota Children's Museum in Rochester; $150,000 each year is for the Duluth Children's Museum; $150,000 each year is for the Grand Rapids Children's Museum; $150,000 each year is for the Southern Minnesota Children's Museum for the Mni Wiconi and other arts and cultural exhibits; and $80,000 the first year is for the Wheel and Cog Children's Museum of Hutchinson for interactive exhibits and outreach programs on arts and cultural heritage.
Twin Cities
- Delight families with fresh activities
- 550,000 total visitors, 110,000 from Play for All
- 300,000 visitors in Studio & Creativity Jam changing galleries
- Receive feedback from 2,500 visitors
- Develop plan for experience modifications based on evaluation and learning
Empower parents to enrich children’s learning
- Launch and grow visitor messaging platform
- Phase II Content Creation
- Text messages – 5 series (ex: exhibit-specific tips)
- Videos – 3 to highlight powers of play and supportive adult behaviors
- Timeline Milestone: February 2018 – Launch of Phase II content
- Audience Development: Promote adoption of parent messaging content through signage, email, web and incentive-based promotions
- Reach: 1K text subscribers; 10K visits to web page; 1.5K views on Phase II videos
Rochester
- Will engage visitors in Southeastern Minnesota to build creative and critical
- Experiences will reach 30,000 people, 4,000 through Play for All
Twin Cities
- Delight families: We welcomed 517,506 visitors, with 126,239 through Play for All. We collected 4,596 visitor surveys, hosted two focus groups, and gathered staff feedback on visitor experience. Internal eval included 100 Days, Operation Clicker and Becoming the New Museum.
- About 35% of visitors, or 181,127, visited The Studio, and 55%, or 284,628 visited Creativity Jam, galleries designed to host changes.
- Empowering Parents: We launched onsite text messaging in Sept 2017 to provide tips for parents to enhance learning through play at the museum. We created a digital Museum Guide with a map and parent tips for each gallery.
- We produced and shared Power of Play content via social media. In June 2018, we launched Phase II, five animated play tip videos, on our new web-based parent resource hub. The hub also includes text and blog posts about the benefits of play. Results:
- 2,183 opt-ins Museum Guide
- 497 opt-ins play tips
- 74% report tips helpful in supporting child’s learning
- 14,542 page views of Power of Play content
- 4,113 video views
ROCHESTER
- We hosted Our Town, Ball-o-Rama, TINKERTOY: Build Your Imagination, and Framed: Step into Art, and welcomed 34,127 visitors with 4,967 through Play for All. We distributed 478 free memberships to low income families. Results measured with box office software and internal tracking.
$1,030,000 the first year and $950,000 the second year are for arts and cultural heritage grants to children's museums for arts and cultural exhibits and related educational outreach programs.Of this amount, $500,000 each year is for the Minnesota Children's Museum for interactive exhibits and outreach programs on arts and cultural heritage, including the Minnesota Children's Museum in Rochester; $150,000 each year is for the Duluth Children's Museum; $150,000 each year is for the Grand Rapids Children's Museum; $150,000 each year is for the Southern Minnesota Children's Museum for the Mni Wiconi and other arts and cultural exhibits; and $80,000 the first year is for the Wheel and Cog Children's Museum of Hutchinson for interactive exhibits and outreach programs on arts and cultural heritage.
Delight families
- 515,000 total visitors, 100,000 from Play for All
- Receive feedback from 3,000 visitors
- Implement changing experiences in CJ, Studio, Landing, and Imaginopolis
- Work with community partners to inform two museum experiences
Empower parents to enrich children’s learning
- Play tip videos - 5K views each on average
- Online parent resource center – 2K page views per month on average
- Text messaging and digital Museum Guide – 2K combined opt ins
- Text messaging – 75% of message recipients report messages are useful to enhancing their child’s play time
- Parent attitudes – Baseline survey of member parents shows increase in knowledge and support for benefits of playful learning
Rochester
- Engage visitors in Southeastern Minnesota to build creative and critical thinking skills.
- Experiences will reach 30,000 people, 4,000 through Play for All
Delight families
We welcomed 449,549 visitors, with 119,308 through Play for All. We collected 2,774 surveys and gathered other visitor and staff feedback.
Changing experiences:
- Creativity Jam: gathered 171 visitor ideas, changed in spring 2019 to creative/critical thinking with origami, courage wall, and large tangrams
- Imaginopolis: Launched Cosmic Junkyard in March, where visitors create stories using cosmic debris
- The Landing and Tip Top Terrace: partnered with Center for Hmong Arts and Talents (CHAT) to create Terrace canopy. The Landing changed to Games, developed with CHAT. Spring changed to Engineering and Design, challenging visitors to plan and build structures
- The Studio: implemented Fiber Arts then changed to Upcycle/Recycle in the fall. January we changed to Drawn to Drawing, providing prompts to experiment drawing. Spring we changed to Making Machines to explore 6 simple machines
Empowering Parents
We produced and shared play content that encourages parents to embrace child’s exploration at the museum and beyond, including: 19 blog posts and 5 new open-ended activity videos to try at home (launched June 2019). Content shared on refreshed parent resource hub, enews, text program, and social media. In March 2019, we collected baseline survey data about how parents support play and amount of child’s playtime.
Results
92,329 play video views
2,491 monthly parent resource hub views
1,600 Text/Guide opt-ins
78% reported texts useful to enhance play
22 enews to 28k subscribers
95 Social media posts reaching over 454,000
1,100 parent survey responses
Page/Video views measured by Google Analytics. Usefulness measured via survey. Opt-ins/Social media/newsletter tracking via host platforms
ROCHESTER
We hosted Framed: Step into Art, Turtle Travels, Young Architects, and The Amazing Castle, and welcomed 29,979 visitors with 5,525 through Play for All. We distributed 440 free memberships to low income families.