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This summer, I got the amazing opportunity to intern at the North Country Children’s Museum located in Potsdam. At the museum, children are encouraged to participate in hands-on play, allowing them to be creative and learn in a fun way. It was so fun to experience a different form of education than what I have experienced in my past.
At the museum, my big projects included making a pop-up activity and a weekend program. I got to design these by myself from start to finish with the help and advising of my supervisors and other staff. My pop-up activity was a science-based craft focusing on Potsdam sandstone and overall sedimentary rocks. Using sand, kids are able to make their own “sedimentary rocks” in necklaces and learn about the local connections. This activity is now added to the museum's collection of pop-ups and can be used whenever they would like. The weekend programs are hour-long lessons on the weekends that families can participate in at the museum. For my lesson, I created and taught a “Wacky Moves Workshop”, a dance-based lesson teaching kids the importance of physical activity and creativity. This lesson included a warm-up, the basics of movement, lots of fun movement-based games, and a friendly competition using the kids' creativity and knowledge from the lesson to make up dances. It was awesome to be able to create these plans because it was fun and will help me in the future with my dream of becoming a teacher.
Along with these big projects, I did many other tasks day-to-day at the museum. I spent time assisting with the planning, preparation, and teaching of multiple week-long summer camps. Teaching and assisting pre-made lessons when field trips came to the museum was another one of my frequent jobs. I supervised play at different staffed pop-up activities and crafts. I learned the admissions system and worked at the front desk, checking memberships and assisting with any questions visitors had. I maintained the exhibits' cleanliness and organization as well. I also got the opportunity to work for the museum at special events such as Kids' Summer Bash, Potsdam Summerfest, and the many special guests that came to the museum during my time there.
I am so grateful for my time at the museum because of the incredible educational opportunity, but even more for all of the staff at the museum. Everyone working at the museum was ready to help whenever needed, willing to take my ideas into account when creating lessons, and were just incredibly kind people. This made my experience much more enjoyable and allowed me to achieve the most from this internship.
I learned many tools that I will take with me in my future teaching/educational roles. One of the most valuable being that it is important to be able to adjust to skill and age level as necessary. Whether this be on the fly by cutting out/adding material, or pre-planning with alternative activities, I learned this to be a necessary skill. I also figured out small tricks like how to fill extra time in lessons, how to get and maintain children's engagement, and how to create lessons that don’t feel like work!
This internship was perfect for my future goals, and I believe it will greatly help me for years to come. Thank you to the Children’s Museum and the funding that allowed me to complete this.