child program

1. School Groups | Museum Education Program Planning Template | HST 389: Museum Education & Living History
ANDREA SERNA
CHICAGO HISTORY MUSEUM
The Great Chicago Fire & The Web of Memory
https://www.greatchicagofire.org/
“A City Ablaze: Understanding the Chicago Fire”
In 100 words, summarize the content and goals of the existing exhibit and state simply how your museum
education program will intervene/enter in.
You may select any current/on-going exhibit that you have access to; either virtually (through an
extensive virtual exhibit) or physically (depending on where you are located right now during the
pandemic).
Chicago History Museum’s existing virtual exhibit presents two main components that explain the Chicago fire.
According to the museum’s online exhibition website, the first part are five chronological sections that explain the
history of the fire, and the second part examines six ways in which the fire was remembered by Chicagoans. The
second part of the exhibit includes eyewitness accounts, contemporary journalism and illustrations, literature and art,
fire souvenirs, and formal commemorations and exhibitions. The online exhibition already includes creative
components and primary sources to explain the fire, so my museum education program will enter in by offering an
interactive way for students to engage in reconstructing the chronological timeline of the fire. Because of the
devastating nature of the contents of this exhibition, museum program educators will first offer the careful storytelling
of the effects of the fire on the community with appropriate images and displaying of artifacts.
PROGRAM PLAN OVERVIEW
Use this overview section to define your specific audience and elaborate on the above to explain the plan for
your Museum Education Program. You might think of this section as the section that would be used for
marketing purposes, to get teachers or administrators (and students!) excited about taking part in this program.
The specific audience for this museum education program is late elementary school classes throughout Illinois.
Although the Chicago fire was a devastating event that caused great damage and loss, it is an important piece of
Chicago history that is also interesting. Through this program, students will be told the chronological story of the fire
with appropriate images, they will map where the fire travelled in its entirety, engage in a creative reconstruction of
the fire’s timeline by storyboard, and see artifacts left behind by the fire.
Overarching Objective
One sentence that describes what the program is about.
● This program’s objective is to teach students about how the Chicago fire happened and its effects on the city of
Chicago in a delicate but informative manner.
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2. School Groups | Museum Education Program Planning Template | HST 389: Museum Education & Living History
Logistics & Program Structure
Include program length, group size,
information about staff/volunteer
needs, projected number of times
the program would run and when,
and anything else you can think of
that would relate to this subheading.
This program can take place in
person, virtually, or can be brought
to schools—make sure you are
making clear where.
Include Program Length, Group Size, Availability, Information about Staff/Volunteer Needs
● The program length will run for 3 hours. The first hour and a half will be a storytelling of the history of the
Chicago fire and the mapping of how it travelled, and the last hour and a half will be the storyboard
reconstruction group activity and the showing of the artifacts.
● The group size can be large because it will be a virtual museum program, and there is a group activity that can
include up to 10 students in a group. This is ideal for schools who wish to include a full grade level. For the sake
of this project, the total number of students will be 100.
● The needs of staff/volunteers are access and training to online creative programs such as Photoshop or Canva
to create backgrounds that follow the story of the fire while they are sharing with students, access to museum
artifacts from the fire to show the students, and access and training to Zoom to change backgrounds and put
students into break out rooms.
● The projected number of times the program would run and when could be once a week for different schools for
an indefinite number of times, especially because it is a virtual museum program. It would run during school
hours to supplement social studies teaching for the students.
● Museum program educators could also adapt this program to run in person, and in this case, would need
physical craft supplies for the group reconstruction of the storyboard, and students would be able to physically
observe and analyze fire artifacts left behind. If in person, the groups would be smaller in order to ensure
students are able to fully take advantage of the experience.
Illinois State Social Studies Curriculum Outcomes Addressed by Program*
Include no more than THREE learning outcomes for Social Studies, for ONE GRADE ONLY:
https://www.isbe.net/socialsciences
● Grade 5: SS.G.3.5: Analyze the effects of specific catastrophic and environmental events as well as
technological developments that have impacted our nation and compare to other places.
● Grade 5: SS.H.1.5: Create and use a chronological sequence of related events to compare developments that
happened at the same time.
● Grade 5: SS.IS.6.3-5: Construct and critique arguments and explanations using reasoning, examples, and
details from multiple sources.
PROGRAM OUTLINE & CURRICULUM MAPPING
Provide a short description & any set up, time, and materials needed for each of the bullet points below. Each
activity should have an original TITLE, note the location the activity will take, and should feature a material
culture object, or museum artifact in some way.
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3. School Groups | Museum Education Program Planning Template | HST 389: Museum Education & Living History
● The program will begin with creating and condensing the history surrounding the fire. For example, program
leaders will need to first put the Great Chicago Fire sections (A Bird’s Eye View of Pre-Fire Chicago, The
Great Conflagration, The Ruined City, Rescue and Relief, and Queen of the West Once More) into a
coherent story-like monologue. This will be the story-telling part of the program that puts the museum’s
exhibition content into a digestible and engaging story for students to listen to. Next, program leaders will
also create virtual backgrounds that relate to events in the story they will tell. Program leaders must also
ensure that fire artifacts are is good condition to display on camera for the students.
Activity #1 Story Time: Once Upon a Time in Chicago
Location/Time Needed Location: Zoom (online/virtually)
Time Needed: 45 minutes to an hour
Associated Material Culture
Artifact
Artifacts left behind by the fire: stack of ceramic teacups, bent bottle, fused
screws, welded washers, melted marbles.
Description (ideally one that
could be used to market the
program)
During this activity, students will listen to museum educators retell the story of
how Chicago was before the fire, how the fire started and where it touched,
how the city looked and responded after the fire, and how people remember
the fire.
Learning Outcome (pasted
from above) addressed by this
activity
SS.IS.6.3-5: Construct and critique arguments and explanations using
reasoning, examples, and details from multiple sources.
Activity #2 So You Want to Be a Cartographer: Mapping the Fire
Location/Time Needed Location: Zoom (online/virtually)
Time Needed: 45 minutes to an hour
Associated Material Culture
Artifact
Eyewitness accounts and paintings/drawings/images illustrating the fire. This
will be the “Touring the Fire” section of the exhibition.
Description (ideally one that
could be used to market the
program)
During this activity, students will recreate a map of the city of Chicago that
reflects where the fire hit. Students will also explore different iconic places the
fire hit such as the Chamber of Commerce, Crosby’s Opera House, Cook
County Courthouse and Jail, Chicago Historical Society, Water Tower, various
city bridges.
Learning Outcome (pasted
from above) addressed by this
activity
SS.G.3.5: Analyze the effects of specific catastrophic and environmental
events as well as technological developments that have impacted our nation
and compare to other places.
Activity #3 [Reconstructing the Past: Creating a Storyboard Timeline]
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4. School Groups | Museum Education Program Planning Template | HST 389: Museum Education & Living History
Location/Time Needed Location: Zoom (online/virtually)
Time Needed: 45 minutes to an hour
Associated Material Culture
Artifact
This will be the “Timeline: Chicago in 1871” section of the exhibition.
Description (ideally one that
could be used to market the
program)
During this activity, students will be put into groups (breakout rooms) where
they will digitally create a storyboard for their group’s assigned event in the
timeline of the Chicago fire through an online program that allows for various
illustrators. Once completed, groups will put their events in chronological order
with other groups’ final pieces.
Learning Outcome (pasted
from above) addressed by this
activity
SS.H.1.5: Create and use a chronological sequence of related events to
compare developments that happened at the same time.
● The program will conclude with a question-and-answer session. Students will get the opportunity to ask the
museum curators of The Great Chicago Fire & The Web of Memory any questions they might have about
the fire and how it impacted the city of Chicago. Students will be able to keep the mapping and storyboards
they created, as well as keep some of the virtual backgrounds from the storytelling activity in the hopes that
they will share with their parents and families what they learned after the conclusion of the museum
education program.
Rationale
Describe your reasons for developing the project as you have proposed it. You may need to justify why you
have chosen your unique approach. Consider including the following points in your rationale.
● I believe that my museum education program is well put together and could be effective because it centers
around a strong educational component. It is structured in a way that encourages learning and engages
students to interact with the content they are being presented. Additionally, because this is a subject that will
most likely be new to them, students are encouraged to explore their curiosity of the subject matter, which
achieves an educational program experience. Moreover, as told by Kimberly A. Huber and Anna Johnson in
“Planning and Managing Museum Programs and Special Events,” the program deeply relates to the collections
of the Chicago History Museum and fits their mission of serving as a hub of learning and civic engagement.
BUDGET
Include projected items that would need to be purchased for this project to function; you do not need to include
staffing costs, etc. Don’t worry about including costs of these items for this exercise, simply include what you would
need for EACH program to run [i.e., so this cost would be per program. So if you needed 100 sheets of yellow
construction paper every time you ran the program, list that, rather than listing the 10,000 sheets of yellow
construction paper that you would think would be used over time. ☺ ]
● Canva ($119.99 for a year)
● 100 copies of a map of the city of Chicago from the 1870s
● 200 sheets of orange construction paper and 200 sheets of yellow construction paper
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5. School Groups | Museum Education Program Planning Template | HST 389: Museum Education & Living History
● 100 glue sticks
● 100 scissors
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